Review: The Secret Chapter

The Secret Chapter 
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy 
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review! 

A Librarian’s work is never done, and once Irene has a quick rest after their latest adventure, she is summoned to the Library. The world where she grew up is in danger of veering deep into chaos, and she needs to obtain a particular book to stop this from happening. No copies of the book are available in the Library, so her only choice is to contact a mysterious Fae information broker and trader of rare objects: Mr. Nemo.

Irene and Kai make their way to Mr. Nemo’s remote Caribbean island and are invited to dinner, which includes unlikely company. Mr. Nemo has an offer for everyone there: he wants them to steal a specific painting from a specific world. He swears that he will give each of them an item from his collection if they bring him the painting within the week.

Everyone takes the deal. But to get their reward, they will have to form a team, including a dragon techie, a Fae thief, a gambler, a driver, and the muscle. Their goal? The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, in a early twenty-first century world, where their toughest challenge might be each other. 

I. Love. This. Series. I say this every single time I review a book from this series, but there's never a bad book. Each book brings something new to the series, has a different vibe to it, and is a strong addition to the series, and The Secret Chapter is no exception. 

The attention grabbing first line had me happily sinking back in to the world of the Invisible Library and this time our adventure had some James Bond vibes to it, along with an Ocean's Eleven kind of vibe and I was living for it. 

The world that we visit in this  one is an interesting one, we've got a law enforcement branch called CENSOR that's in charge of dealing with supernaturals to contend with. Plus we have an interesting bunch of new characters and I found myself quite liking a few of them. We've got the fae, Ernst, Felix, Jerome and Tina, then we have a new dragon with ties to Kai in the form of Indigo who has a very interesting backstory. 

I actually ended up really liking all of the new fae and I became quite attached to them so I was sad to see one of them go, and sad that we might not get to see anymore of the others. I'm quite hoping they'll pop up and we'll get to see them again in future books! They were all a lot of fun, and had very different personalities to them dependent on their fae arch-type so they made for a great bunch of characters to assist in this heist! 

There's plenty of action, plenty of plotting and intrigue as we get to grips with the new world...and the shadiness of the mission. The romance between Irene and Kai never once overshadows the story. It's there, but it's in the background and subtle. I appreciate the fact that just because they're involved with each other, they don't merge in to one unit and go along with whatever the other wants. They both get involved in this mission for different reasons, and they stick to their own agendas even if that means keeping secrets. 

Obviously we have a lot of information on the library and how it works and so on, as well as a fair bit on the fae, this book takes us in the direction of the dragons which I was incredibly excited to discover. We get a lot of interesting information about the dragons, how they think and operate and a little about their history too. There's even some questions raised about them and their politics, and as I said...I was interested to meet Indigo! 

The ending leaves us with a couple of revelations that are going to be exciting and possibly dangerous to see play out in upcoming books, and I can't wait to see how they play out. My mind was completely blown and now I have even more questions than I did before, but I wouldn't have it any other way! I'm also intrigued to meet Silver's niece in the next book and see what she adds to our little group. The Secret Chapter is another exciting and rich instalment in the series, and each book builds brilliantly upon the others and brings more to the table.