I've been sitting on this review for a few days now and I still haven't found the proper words to gush about how much I loved this book. Everything about it exceeded my expectations and made me hungry for more. I'm excited for a sequel. I'm excited for whatever Huchu decides to write next. Whatever it is will be an autobuy from me, no question.

One of the biggest strengths of this book is Huchu's worldbuilding. The setting is dark and atmospheric with a perfect balance between the fantasy and the realistic. Huchu has a way of describing things that are very foreign in a way that makes them feel familiar and relatable. Even the most outlandish fantasy scenarios seem less farfetched when you can picture them so clearly. Reading Huchu's writing is a memorable sensory experience that's such a treat throughout the book. His writing is just so easy to read - it's delightful.

The same balanced qualities of his worldbuilding apply to his storytelling and character crafting. Ropa is a truly unique character who is easy to root for, even for all her sharp edges. I enjoyed seeing her cleverness and badass moments countered with softer moments with her grandmother and little sister. I fell in love with her grandmother, because how could you not?? Ropa's friend group - both old and new- are colorful, dynamic supporting characters that bring their own flare to the page. I appreciate Huchu giving them the space to be their own characters and occasionally letting them steal the show for a few pages.

The story itself is dark, mysterious, and incredibly compelling. I had a difficult time putting this book down because I always found myself wanting to spend a little more time and learn a little more. I enjoyed the blending of real world danger with events impacted by spirits and the spiritual realm. The concept of ferrying messages between the living and the dead felt original and provided and interesting framework to kick off the action. I also really enjoyed the secret magical library and constantly found myself wanting to know more about it. Definitely eager to see how Ropa's magical education plays out in future books.

Overall, this is a great read full of:
-lovable and interesting characters
-secret societies with magic libraries
-dark criminal underbelly mysteries
-so much Scottish slang
-action, action, action
-all the family and friendship feels

Highly recommend for all my dark urban fantasy fans OR for those looking for an easy introduction to the genre. You couldn't do better than this one.

Ropa ekes out a living hand-to-mouth, supporting her grandmother and younger sister by running messages from ghosts to the living. It’s a dangerous world, where cops are muggers and children are vanishing without a trace.
Then a ghost asks her to find her missing son, and a friend invites her into a secret society that quickly complicates her life—and may just end it.
I’ve realized of late how much I enjoy being guided through fantasy or historical worlds by characters with a gift of gab. Ropa is an autodidact, listening to audiobooks and podcasts (a girl after my own heart) as she navigates the post-apocalyptic landscape of Edinburgh. I loved her asides about the experience of learning something only to realize how much more there is, always, to discover. This is a book I enjoyed, and it promises sequels I look forward to reading.
Received a free copy via NetGalley and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

The Library of the Dead did NOT disappoint! I LOVED this Gothic tale set in Edinburgh, and I want to go there even more now. I love how this story shapes like a dark fairy tale, with Grimm brother like telling and slight bits of comedy woven in between. Ropa Moya is a ghost stalker, and can go between the dead and the living using her instrument the mbira, which is providing her a living. Ropa is tasked with saving the Taken Children she finds herself in a cursed house and she is constantly facing terrors of the Dead Zone. The Library of the Dead features a great mix of Scots history along with zimbabwean culture . This book is beyong entertaining, and fantastical. The fact that it's a series makes me SO happy! Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Books for the copy to review

T. L. Huchu’s The Library of the Dead is a dark, gritty read. Set in a futuristic Edinburgh, the novel focuses on Ropa, a ghostalker. For a fee, Ropa will deliver a ghost’s message to their living loved ones - at least, that is how Ropa ran her business until she met Nicole, a ghost who will not move on because her beloved son, Ollie, is missing. Ropa’s chance encounter with Nicole will set her upon a path to discover many of Edinburgh’s other magical secrets.

Huchu has created an interesting world in The Library of the Dead. In his Edinburgh, his characters had to deal with the same social issues that are prevalent in our own society. Ropa herself is a very complicated protagonist - to support her family, she had to drop out of school. With the decision to incorporate Ropa’s use of slang throughout the novel, Huchu gives her character a even more unique voice. The slang was a little jarring at first, but each word’s meaning could easily be inferred from the surrounding text.

Many thanks to Tor and NetGalley for the e-ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book had lots of really cool elements buried under my not favourite writing style. Ropa is a medium/clairvoyant who stumbles into a missing kid situation and some other interesting elements. I like how the story resolved but it felt like nothing happened until the last 100 pages? I'll definitely check out the next book in the series to see where it goes but this wasn't my favourite read.
Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this one! It was a refreshing take on urban fantasy with a strong protaganist. I can't wait to see what else this author does!

I loved the voice of this story so much. Ropa just had a voice that I could actually hear as I was reading this. Could this be because I watch a whole lot of BBC shows? Maybe.

Anyway, I was interested in this story because of ghosts and Scotland and the whole occult library concept, but I got drawn into the story by Ropa and her life and her story.

Okay, but I do feel the need to go ahead and say that the summary above describes this as a contemporary fantasy set in modern Edinburgh…and that is not entirely true. This is sort of an alternate universe/dystopian future Edinburgh. But it is still an immensely worthwhile story, and I was sucked into it so quickly.

There was an interesting group of characters to follow. I loved the haunted atmosphere of Scotland in this story. The pace was pretty quick and I definitely flew through the pages. It’s not a super long fantasy book, not quite 350 pages long, and with the tension and mystery and such, I think most will probably read it pretty quickly.

Oh, and the summary is also misleading because it mentions Ropa getting pulled into this mystery because the dead are whispering of children being bewitched and being left as husks bereft of joy…but one ghost hassles Ropa about finding her missing son, and Ropa ends up looking into that, and while looking for the missing boy, she finds another child who is a husk, and that leads her deeper into the mystery of how this is happening and why.

I also wish we had been able to spend more time with the occult library and learning more about the magic and stuff like that. This book definitely feels like the first of a series, one just starting to set up the outline of the world and the magic and the characters. Hopefully future books will help expand upon everything in a deeper and richer way.

Overall though, I really enjoyed this book and I’m glad that I read it.

I think this book wasn't the book for me, and I ended up putting it down at around 20%. I think this book WILL be for you if you like sharp, crass, sardonic protagonists (think S. T. from "Hollow Kingdom,") and urban fantasy settings. I was anticipating a more serious tone from the book itself, but if you know this going in it might be an excellent option for you!

Thanks to NetGalley & Macmillan-Tor/Forge for the copy in exchange for an honest review. DNF at 10%.

Not really bad but the writing style wasn't for me and the protagonist was hard to like. I did like the magic system and how the ghosts operated, however. Perhaps I'll try reading it another time.

The construction of a secondary Edinburgh and the magical system that integrated principles of math, chemistry and physics were superbly done. Those elements, along with the vivid, atmospheric descriptions and engaging first person narrative made this a wonderful read unlike anything I've seen in a while. There were times when I thought the pacing was a bit slow, but mostly because the premise was strong and the stakes were rising. So scenes where Ropa delivers a message from one of her regular spirits felt like they were getting in the way of the main driving plot points, though they continued to add to the world and Ropa's practice as a ghostalker. She is generally unlikeable, which is understandable, but not so much so that we don't root for her. Her relationship to her Gran and little sister also anchor her heart and humanity as she approaches her seemingly emotional work with a very pragmatic attitude. The level of detail Huchu has given to the crumbling but stubborn slums that Ropa knows like the back of her hand to the complex principles of magic described in the tomes of the ancient Library should be aspired to in secondary world building. I'm already looking forward to the next book in the series!

The world has changed. Scotland is no longer part of Britain...The King, long live the king, rules the best he can. Magic has reasserted itself in the world, moving from the background and into the common place. Magic can become a trade, as our young protagonist has figured out. She carries messages from the dead to the living, to help mend broken hearts, set affairs in order, and to find lost things. She is approached by to the recently passed mother of a missing boy, and now she is bound to find out what happened. This leads further into the world of magic that she had only scratched the surface of before. Now with new friends and new abilities she will find what happened to the lost boy and save the city at the same time.

4.5

When I started this book, I was really confused, but like any good book in this fantasy-magic-mystery genre, you have to keep reading for everything to click into place and make sense. I'm not 100% sure that everything actually did make sense at the end, but I still really enjoyed it and can't wait for the sequel (which might answer some of my underlying questions about this world the author created.)

This story seems to be set in post-apocalyptic Scotland, where Ropa, a 14-year-old, has dropped out of school to earn money to support her grandmother and little sister as a ghostalker -- someone who is paid (either by the dead or the living) to deliver messages from the recently deceased to their loved ones. (Magic and the spirits are an assumed truth in this world.) When the spirit of a mother finds her and begs Ropa to help her find her missing son, Ropa finds herself in over her head fighting against an evil force stronger than she understands.

Yes, this sounds really strange, but once you're immersed in the world, it all makes perfect sense. And while there is a tentative conclusion to this book, it is clear that there is a lot more story to tell in the next one, and I can't wait.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. It has not influenced my opinion.

Thank you for my copy of The Library of the Dead! I absolutely enjoyed this haunting, fast paste story. It grabbed my attention from the very beginning and took me on a delightful ride. I can't wait to read more from this author!

The Library of the Dead by TL Huchu is a very noirish horror story with a teenage heroine who can talk to the dead. As she struggles to control her environment and save younger children she is pitted against some very nasty characters. Worth reading.

I really loved the premise of the book; anything involving a library draws me in. The main character can speak to ghosts and runs a business delivering messages for them to support her sister and grandmother. She stumbles upon a mystery involving the kidnapping of children around the city. Through her adventures, she discovers a hidden library, new friends, and more to the mystery than she originally thought.

I enjoyed the world building and the post-apocalyptic setting. The internal dialogue of the character took some getting used to, but improved as the book continued. Initially, the plot was interesting and kept me wanting to know what the mystery was. About half way through the story, the plot fell apart. The introduction of the villains was never fully developed and split into several different directions. They never really connected to each other and introduced too many concepts that weren’t concluded satisfactorily. The library only appears briefly and never really ties into the rest of the story.

True Rating: 3.5 stars

I feel like what this book was trying to do was lovely. I really enjoyed the story for the most part.
I just really think that it either got edited down too far, or just didn't get enough time to flesh out parts of the story.
Because of that, this book fell a bit flat for me. It didn't give me what I needed from it, but what I got was good.

Unfrtunately I didn't gel with this book and ended up DNFing it about a quarter of the way in. The narrator had an awesome distinctive voice and I loved it at first, but there wasn't much going on plotwise that broke up the internal monologues and the style ended up grating on me. I also wasn't very connected to the side characters, so I felt a little isolated inside the main characters head. I think this is more of a me thing than something that relfects on the author. I didn't love the storytelling style, but I'm sure that some people out there would! Thanks for the chance to read it.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Macmillan/Tor-Forge for an e-galley of The Library of the Dead.

The whimsy, the ghosts, the secret underground library - what more could you want? Ropa can talk to the dead, and she'll deliver their message to the living...for a fee. Scrappy and just trying to get by, Ropa haunts Edinburgh to find ghosts to speak with and then track down their loved ones to pass on the message. She has her gran and her little sister to look out for, so when nefarious messages begin to pop up, Ropa begins to wonder if there isn't something more suspicious haunting Edinburgh.

This book has such a wonderful element of whimsical magic and the setting of modern (possibly in the near future?) Edinburgh is descriptive enough it's like you are there. Throw in a secret magic society with an underground library and I was sold. I loved this book from start to finish.

T. L. Huchu's The Library of the Dead was an inventive dive into a mysterious world.

Unfortunately, I did have to DNF this book. I felt like I knew exactly what was going to happen from the beginning, and even though there were a lot of great things that it did, I didn't really feel too pulled into it. However, I do have a bit of praise for it, so I want to get into that.

First, the voice was really well-executed. You can tell that Ropa grew up in this post apocalyptic Scotland even by the way she speaks, and that's one of the things that makes her characterization and the world-building so amazing. I commend T. L. Huchu for achieving this.

Second, the setting itself was unique and really quite fun. I liked this new take on fantasy and being transported out of our world now. I also liked the ghost elements of the world because ghosts are fun, obviously.

What really drew me into this book was the beginning. I loved when Ropa dealt with that poltergeist. It really interested me. But the rest of the book was a lot different, and didn't speak to that element that I loved.

Overall, I think T. L. Huchu did some amazing things with this book, it just wasn't for me. I really wished I could finish it because I did want to see where Huchu went with all of the elements, but I couldn't get interested enough in it.

This book has a way of grabbing you by the eyeballs and not letting go until the deed is done. Even though it’s about 600 pages long, I didn’t have any trouble flying through it. The narrator, Ropa, has such a strong voice that it’ll pull you right into her world so you can experience every wonderful and terrible detail firsthand.

The narrator is just shy of 15 years old, but the book is certainly not middle grade and doesn’t even feel like young adult. Ropa has to take care of her little sister and grandmother by talking to ghosts and delivering their messages to the living. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it, and she might as well be the one earning the dough.

The story takes a sinister turn when Ropa stumbles upon a mystery involving missing children and a form of magic she’s never seen before. The titular library of the dead plays a small part in this novel, but subsequent installations should open that world up even further. I’m a huge fan, and I’ll definitely be picking up the next.