The Book of Secrets starts what is sure to be a fascinating new series from Melissa McShane. I loved reading along as newcomer to magic, Helena, learned about a delightful new world of magical bookstores, auguries, and mayhem. However, I felt the dialogue was a little flat and awkward. Also, the plot had trouble flowing, and each event felt a bit forced. Even so, I enjoyed this book and recommend it to literary magic lovers.

This book felt a little flat to me, I think because I had trouble caring about the main character, Helena, and so found it a bit difficult to connect to the story.

The magical world described in this book is fairly unique. Mages from two different schools of practice battle Lovecraftian-style monsters from another reality with the aid of magical entities known as Neutralities. One of those Neutralities is Abernathy’s, a bookstore that doubles as an oracle. Of course, the narrator of the book, Helena Davies, knows none of this when she gets a job at Abernathy’s. It’s only when the man who hired her is murdered on her first day at work and she becomes the custodian of the oracle that Helena starts to learn about the world she’s gotten mixed up in. It’s a pretty steep learning curve, too, with a murderer on the loose and monsters lurking.

So, the world built here is interesting, and most of the novel is spent educating Helena and the reader about how it works (the “secrets” of the book’s title). Not that there isn’t action (including one rather shocking and unexpected death), but since Helena knows nothing when she starts to work at Abernathy’s, a lot of explanation is necessary.

The amount of time spent on describing the magical world far outweighed the development of Helena’s character, though, and I think that’s why I had trouble getting drawn into the story. I never felt like I got a clear picture of who Helena is as a person outside of her interactions at Abernathy’s. I know that she has a family and a best friend, Viv; that she has an ex-boyfriend, Chet; and that she had been leading a rather aimless life before being hired. But it’s all very shallowly sketched.

Book of Secrets isn’t a bad book, and maybe I’m just disappointed because I’ve enjoyed other books by the author so much more. I’m interested enough that I want to read the next book in the series, The Book of Peril. Hopefully Helena’s character will come alive for me as the series continues.

A copy of this book was provided through NetGalley for review; all opinions expressed are my own.

Reading a book by a new to you author is always a learning experience: sometimes, you'll learn that the author writes really well and captivates your attention and can quite easily take you on an emotional journey - those are the truly great reading experiences.

More often than not, you'll find books that teach you what you don't like or authors whose works you don't want to read because their style just doesn't appeal to you.

In the case of The Book of Secrets by Melissa McShane that I was lucky enough to receive an arc from Netgalley of, I learned that the story just wasn't my cup of tea.

Don't get me wrong, the book is very well written and I was initially quite intrigued in the beginning.
I'd read the blurb of the book and the basic concept of the story captured my attention, enough so that I wanted to know more, I wanted to read the story.

The story started off very well and completely held my attention but midway through chapter 5, it just lost me.

There is quite a bit of theology in the book and explanations that just didn't sit well with me. I found myself unable to continue reading the book. I was no longer interested in knowing what became of the characters.

Personally, this book just lost me along the way.

Others, however, may very well enjoy this book.

I will say that the premise of the story is one that I have not come across before.

Exciting and promising premise; magic and a bookstore. Was optimistic going into the story, but unfortunately rather bored still at the 33% mark.

Ever thought that your new job was a killer? Try working at this bookstore…

Helena just took a job at a quaint bookstore, and her first day’s a doozy. She quickly discovers that Abernathy is everything you ever wanted in a bookstore and much more… Her boss is dead, magic is real, she’s inherited the bookstore which turns out to be an oracle, and it seems she’s on at least one killer’s hit list. Luckily Helena’s mom is making lasagna for dinner, so it’s not all bad.

Multiple entities would like to get Helena out of the way, including some that would like to delete Abernathy’s oracular powers altogether. To make matters worse, not only must Helena learn to understand this new magical world and the Long War that she’s been dragged into, but the instruction manual for the store is missing. Add in a jealous custodian wannabe who might be scheming against her, nasty murderous critters and perhaps a murderous human or two, and Helena’s life gets a bit more complicated. Thankfully, one of the local Wardens is helpful in a buff ex-Navy SEAL lethal way. And, luckily, Helena has her BFF Viv, who she can confide in and count on for fashion advice.

Book of Secrets is a fun, fast read with a really cool magical system. It’s obviously an introduction to a world and magical system that is much larger than what is explained in this first book, leaving room for growth and interesting developments.

Overall: very worth the read. I’m looking forward to the next installment.

A new series with a ton of potential, the plot has a few slow parts, this can happen when setting up a new world but the writing and world building are very good and kept me turning the page and wanting to read the next one in the series.

The Book of Secrets is the first installment in author Melissa McShane's The Last Oracle series. This is a brand new series from the author. I first became aware of the authors work through her series called The Extraordinaries which I am looking forward to continuing. McShane's new world is a curious one. It is a world in which our protagonist, Helena Davies, walks in for an interview at Abernathy's, and gets hired by the mysterious Nathaniel Briggs on the spot. Abernathy's does business via phone calls, order forms, catalog trade, and in person.

After Nathaniel is found dead, a curious thing happens. Helena inherits the bookstore as custodian. Of course, this leads to all sorts of questions. Why did Nathaniel hire someone with no experience, and no knowledge of what Abernathy's really is? Will Helena be able to do the job she's supposed to be paid fairly well for, or will she have to abdicate to someone else? It's obvious that Nathaniel had no reason to believe that he would die any time soon, but the questions still continue right until the very end at why Helena was chosen over someone who has had previous training.

There are also questions regarding the war which has been ongoing for 700 years. There are creatures who come from somewhere outside our reality. Nightmareland creatures want the magic that humans are born with, but only a few have access to. As a custodian like Lucia Pontafelli who becomes a support mechanism in all of Helena's questions and circumstances she finds herself in, she can also see through glamour and what the monsters actually look like. Wardens like Malcolm Campbell, who is predicted to become Helena's romance buddy, fight and die every day in order to protect this world from the monsters that invade our world.

Abernathy is also a weapon in that it gives out answers at how to fight the long war. It is expected to treat each side (Nicollien & Ambrosite) as equals regardless of personal feelings. Abernathy's runs on what's called indeterminacy. Abernathy is never organized by author, title, or subject. By never being organization, no one actually knows what is in here, therefore anything can be in here. While Helena is learning all about her new function in life, there's those pesky police detectives who truly believe that Helena is involved in some way even though they have zero evidence of actually accusing her of doing evil. Thankfully, Helena does have a bit of relief in her best friend Viv.

There are times the synopsis is perhaps a bit too revealing at what happens in this book. This is one of those cases. So, let me highlight the more interesting aspects. First, Helena isn't a member of the cast of the Librarian, but she is being compared to Flynn. Second, Abernathy's isn't a Library, it's a living oracle, and the greatest of its kind since the disappearance of the Lady at Delphi. People come into Abernathy's with questions, and it is up to the custodian to find the answers given by the oracle. Sometimes those answers are not what the person wants to hear.

Abernathy's is a place that takes both money and magic in payment for augery's. Custodians of Neutralities can't use magic or ask questions on their own behalf. However, many custodians like Helena have abilities bestowed on them by the virtue of their position as custodian. This is not a standalone, although you might think it was after everything is said and done. I would love to have the author dig deeper when it comes to Silas Abernathy. I think there is a fountain of information just waiting to be revealed.

My thought process when I saw this book while browsing Netgalley went something like:

Hmm, set in a bookstore, that's a good start.

Hmm, sweet-but-competent-looking young woman on the cover, also good.

It's by Melissa McShane? Sold!

My experience so far with Melissa McShane is that she writes smooth prose with very few errors, and indeed this was the case. I'm starting to think of her as the other [author:Lindsay Buroker|4512224], the one who, instead of ensemble casts with amusing banter, writes determined, sensible, capable young female protagonists dealing with whatever gets thrown at them (supernatural and otherwise).

I did feel with this one, though, that it was somehow lacking in intensity. It shouldn't have been: we have Lovecraftian invaders from another dimension threatening the world, after all, plus a complete n00b dealing with magical politics in the wake of the man who had just employed her hours earlier being murdered, leaving her to deal with suspicious police and a magical bookstore for which the manual has gone mysteriously missing. (Having more than once been in the position of taking on a challenging new job with no documentation, I identified with that part.) By taking over, she's stepped on the toes of another young woman who saw herself as the designated successor, and isn't being mature about it. And there's a hot, dangerous monster hunter who turns up regularly to save the heroine (though she then immediately does something sensible and effective to underline for us that this is not a damsel-in-distress scenario; I appreciated that).

The thing is, the invaders have been threatening the world for centuries, and they're not threatening it any more than usual; they're dangerous, they kill someone in front of the heroine and pursue her and attack her, but I never found them ice-in-my-veins terrifying, somehow. The magical politics is conducted relatively politely by people who are mostly nice and helpful. The hot monster hunter doesn't offer much encouragement to the heroine to suggest that he's attracted to her in turn and things could become steamy between them. The murderer is notable for absence from the plot most of the time; the urgency of solving the murder seems low, amid everything else that's going on. And a couple of sudden shifts of what had seemed like intractable positions in the rivalry subplot kind of defuse that situation.

I certainly didn't dislike it. The characters are appealing, the setting is well thought out, the infodumps are competently incorporated in educate-the-n00b conversations. I'd happily read a sequel. I just thought it could do with more urgency.

I received a copy from Netgalley for review.

I requested The Book Of Secrets on NetGalley after seeing the cover, and without paying much attention to the description. Book themed stories always interest me, especially if they’re in the fantasy genre. I hoped that this one wouldn’t disappoint me and it didn’t. I finished it in one sitting.

Although I choose this book because of the cover, it’s a little bit deceiving. I was expect a fairly innocent book, but the story isn’t as nice as the girl on the cover. It’s filled with monstrosities and death. It’s more mature than the girl on the cover.

Helena is an interesting character. At first I thought she was a bit soft, but early on she already became stronger out of necessity. Maybe a little too fast. She doesn’t seem unsettled after seeing a corpse and she seems quick to get over a murder happening before her eyes. It’s almost as if her feelings are reset within a couple of days. She doesn’t forget, but she doesn’t feel the fear. That would have made her seem more like a real person.

The world McShane created, where there’s a war against invading monster, is one I see more often (in movies, series or games) than read about. It’s refreshing and she created factions with opposing philosophies which both seem legitimate. She did her best to make both sides sympathetic with their take on dealing the invaders.

I rate The Book Of Secrets with 4 stars. It’s a promising story with more than enough elements to like. Don’t judge this book by the innocent cover, because there’s a depth in the story that isn’t visible on the outside.
I’m looking forward to what the next book will bring for Helena.

“People don’t just receive a book and read out exactly the answer they came for. They have to work at understanding it.”

This book was definitely not what I expected it to be. I enjoyed previous works in Melissa McShane’s “The Extraordinaries” series and so I was excited to read something else from her and the plot of this book really jumped out at me. Of course, anything having to do with a bookstore is going to intrigue me, but this one stood out because it promised to weave together what seemed like a couple different genres, Mystery, Fantasy and Paranormal.

In some ways this book felt almost like a prequel and not a first book. I can’t really explain why I felt that way except that there’s a lot of explanation and just setting up for further events that seems to happen in this book. We get to know the characters, and they’re very likable, but not enough to make me be truly invested in them just yet. The overall plots are very interesting, but there’s still so much left to know and sometimes the explanations appear to fall short or feel open-ended.

I know this is the case with the “romance” between Helena and Malcolm. I put romance in quotes because I feel that’s the direction the author is going with the two of them but they honestly interacted so little and there wasn’t much indication of a romance past Viv and Helena’s interest that it will be a wait and see until the next book. It’s something I’m absolutely interested in. I want to know more about Campbell just on his own, his character is the most interesting out of all of them and there’s little to know about him from this book alone.

I did really enjoy the magical elements of this book, although it is hard to tell whether this book would be considered Fantasy or Paranormal. All of the details on auguries and future predicting was interesting and I’m looking forward to learning more about Abernathy’s and how it works, plus very little was really touched on about this big war that everyone is supposed to be involved in. I would love some flashbacks involving Silas as well, even though he was more of a side mention relating to Helena’s development as custodian in this book, his character is fascinating and it would be great to see more of him.

In the end this book kind of stumped me. It was so enjoyable all the way through, easy to read, the characters grabbed me and so did the story elements, and yet something still felt like it was missing. Overall, wonderful, well-written and enjoyable. But when it ended I almost was still waiting for it to really start, if that makes sense. Like the quote above, I feel like this book is something you have to work at understanding in a way, you have to appreciate it for its uniqueness. Hopefully the next book will really deepen the characters stories more, build up a sense of the world and the mystical elements and maybe then it won’t feel so much like a starter but an adventure.

At first I am a little sceptical because the cover of this book is not really inviting. I thought that this book will tell the story of another magic school by looking on the cover only.. How wrong I was!

The plot is fast-paced even though there are some filler part that I think could be shortened. But the character and the world building are beautifully described. The ending is somewhat flat and left reader with so many questions and wonder, though it is a good strategy to make sure that reader come back for more to satisfy the curiousity.

Overall this is another magical book that I enjoyed and can’t wait for the sequel.

Just a fun little book.

I am a dedicated Melissa McShane-aphile. And this was a solid book, cute and a quick read, with characters I enjoyed (well Viv annoyed me a couple of times,) a world I am dying to know more about, and a potential romance that needs to be explored.

Ready for the next book in the series.

This was a very enjoyable, quick read. It is very similar in style to Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore and The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel: The Alchemist. An innocent young girl unknowingly gets wrapped up in a magical world where there is an ongoing war. As she accepts her new role she realizes she isn't quite as out of place as she originally thought. The prose is not necessarily eloquent but the plot is fast paced and it will keep you on your toes. Overall there isn't much text devoted to character development. I am looking forward to getting more of their backgrounds in the upcoming books of this new series. Fun read!!

I received a copy of The Book of Secrets (The Last Oracle #1) by Melissa McShane from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was intrigued initially by the summary and am happy to report that the book did not disappoint!

The good: a plot that moves swiftly and was not a dime a dozen snoozefest. This book had a well-woven story and crisp descriptions of people or things that keeps the reader engaged, and a mostly likeable protagonist (Helena Davies) that you want to root for.

The not-so-good: the supporting character development could have been stronger and with the swiftly-moving pace of the story, some threads of the plot weren't fully explored/explained; plus, the ending of the story (even though it's setting the stage for the second book) felt rushed and underwhelming. Lastly, what should have been a huge battle scene, was little anticlimactic.

All in all, reading The Book of Secrets (The Last Oracle #1) by Melissa McShane was an enjoyable way to spend a winter evening, and am happy to had the opportunity to do so.

When I decided to review this book, I was a bit apprehensive. Sometimes books like these are vehicles for more of a paranormal romance type of book, which isn’t really my cup of tea. But this book had wonderful world building and character introductions. The plot was well developed. I’m so happy this book is exactly what I wanted.

This is the first book in a series titled The Last Oracle. I have never read this author before, and I wasn’t even aware she had written anything else until after I had read this book. That explains how well-written this book was; she isn’t a novice. Not only, though, was it was well-written, the book was fun and the world building excellent. I really enjoyed the different aspect of oracles, and I’d say what it is, but I don’t want to spoil that part of the book. One thing that struck me was the simplicity of this book. Don’t get me wrong, the book wasn’t simple, but it had an overall old-fashioned, simple feeling that really drew me in, almost, but not quite, a noir feeling. You’ll have to read the book to find out what I mean. I’m hoping that we get to learn even more about the characters. And while this did suffer a little bit from first book syndrome, this was a fun ride, and I can’t wait to see what adventures Helena will go on next! Highly recommend! Thanks to NetGalley and Curiosity Quills Press for the e-book which I voluntarily reviewed.