Love this series and these books. Library portal fantasy meets time travel meets dragons and fae. What’s not to love?

Unfortunately, I've gotten to the point with this series that I'm kind of over it. I started this one and lost interest as I've read. It's a fun quirky series, but it probably should have ended a while ago. It doesn't have the same charm as the first few books.

I think that readers who have enjoyed the previous books in this series will enjoy this one too. It is a good final book to the series. This books wraps up many of the questions of this series.

The writing in this series improved greatly as the series continued. I am excited to read other books by Cogman.

Another amazing addition this series! I love Irene and this group of characters! I really hope we get more of her in the future!

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

In what is supposed to be the conclusion of the this series (Cogman is not opposed to writing about these characters in the future but their adventure here has concluded), we get a lot of our questions answered about the origins of the library, the tattoo the librarians wear, and the historical relationship of dragons, Fae, and librarians. I enjoyed the adventure and mystery. Irene is a fabulous character and loved following her on her journey of discovering her origins and place in the Library. What was disappointing was how some characters faded away or were replaced. Specifically, Lord Silver. He had a place of prominence in the first few books and was nice opposite to Kai. But in the last two books he faded out to be replaced Catherine. I have to wonder if Cogman had a change of heart about how she wanted her characters organized and decided it was too male heavy with Vale and Kai so she phased out Silver and swapped in Catherine.
Overall I like where this story went; the world building, the characters, the mystery, the magic, and would be interested in revisiting these characters in new adventures in the future.

I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of "The Untold Story" months ago and have savored it chapter by chapter fearing it would be the last in the series. It definitely feels that way. By the final chapter all your questions will be answered, the characters relationships solidified, and the main conflicts concluded. A perfect ending point.

It's so hard not to give away spoilers! The action really kicks off in the second half of the book as Irene discovers the nefarious forces behind the library and acts to stop them, save everyone and redeem the library itself. The final chapters are thrilling and won't disappoint.

This book also delivers on answering those nagging questions about Irene's bio parents.. Who is her bio mom? Is Alberich really her dad? Is Alberich redeemable? Why did he turn against the library? After an eight book ride, I finally know!

I also finally got the romance I've been craving from the Irene and Kai relationship. They are finally given a few pages of serious relationship talk around the 74% mark (if you want to just skip to that)! Thank you, Genevieve!

If the series does happen to continue, this will probably still be my jumping off point. However, I will continue to return to the library apartment I've designed in my mind whenever I need a little liminal space of my own. These are the kind of books you like to imagine yourself into.

Thank you for this world and these characters, Ms. Cogman. I can't wait to see where you take us next!

It starts off slow and kind of dense, but once the action begins, it's hard to resist the story as it drives forward. It reads as a true epic, one that makes you feel the world really has been reshaped as you read it. Would recommend.

Irene has spent her life loyal to the Library, but after fighting Alberich in the last book, she's questioning everything. When the Library orders her to kill him, she decides to find out the truth about Alberich and the Library once and for all. Joined by Vale and Kai, she is in for the fight of her life. I have loved this series from the beginning. Although this may be the end of it (or not- the author may return to it sometime), I will revisit it again in the future, as well as reading more from Cogman.

I was a bit disappointed with how the story ended. If you have read all of the other books in the series, this one didn't hold my interest as much as some of the earlier entries. The book is well written like the rest of the series, and I am sad to see these books come to an end for now.

I was so thrilled when I received the digital copy of The Untold Story....I may have done a happy dance!
The Invisible Library series has provided me with adventure, suspense, sarcasm, drama and whit. Ms. Cogman has created a world in which I imagine myself becoming friends with Irene and her cohorts; liking the people she likes, trusting those she trusts and suspecting those she suspects. I anticipated more of the same with this final installment. While unique, The Untold Story failed to capture the same essence I recall from the previous installments. Ms. Cogman's writing felt a bit different. What really stood out to me was the over usage of certain phrases/words. Archetype is a word that is constantly repeated in this book. As a reader, when I author constantly repeats a word I almost feel insulted, as if I couldn't have figured that out based on the context of the dialogue. Perhaps it is just a sticking point for me.
That said, the book has many highlights. The interactions between Irene and Lord Silver still provide a sense of charm and coyness. Vale, as always, provides practical wisdom as well as a nice wallop of dry humor.
At the end of the day, I will always recommend this series. I will miss catching up with Irene, Kai, Vale and the rest of the Library characters.
Thanks to Ms. Cogman for creating a world that the rest of us could not have imagined, that is until you wrote the visual map using your unique language. :)

A thrilling conclusion to this fast paced series. Can't wait to see what else this author has in store. There's also still plenty of room for more story for the MC which is fantastic. The ends are tied up but not too tight.

I received a copy of this book for review from NetGalley. I had plans for today, and this book wrecked them. I wanted to stop reading to eat and be productive, but nope; The Untold Story wouldn't let me stop.
In what I'm assuming is the final addition to the series, Irene Winters and her group of loyal compatriots have their biggest mission yet: save everything. The Library and all other worlds are in danger, and it is up to them to find a way to gather all of the evidence to put a final end to the Library's greatest threat.
This story is action packed, fun, and unexpectedly emotional. Irene has had to evolve so much since the beginning of the series, and I've loved seeing this little family grow. This series has been so much fun, and it's a little bittersweet to see it end. I obviously enjoyed the heck out of it, and could not put it down. I can't wait to see what the author does next.

I read this in a single sitting.

(Well, almost. I started it on a turbulent flight and couldn't focus on the story because I was too focused on my own mortality. However, once on land, it was a sure thing.)

This is the (seventh... eighth... ninth? I'm not even sure) book in this series, and it was BY FAR my favorite. I'm sure if I go back and read prior reviews, I will have said that of all of them, but in this instance it is absolutely true.

While each of the prior books had its own self-contained story as a piece of the larger puzzle, this book answers the big questions, the existential questions, the cornerstone-of-the-plot questions, and it does so in an entirely satisfying and unexpected way.

There is really no way to discuss the plot in any way other than how the back-of-the-book-blurb already has without spoiling elements of it, but suffice to say -- if you enjoy this series, you absolutely MUST continue reading it.

It had a bittersweet sense of finality to it. I quickly went to the author's website to see if the series was over, but learned that we should only think of it as the "end of the current season." Phew.

If you're not reading this series, you should be.

The entire purpose of a long-running series is to entice the reader back to its (hopefully) inexhaustible wells of Story. That the story in question is about the origin of stories and storytelling, about how Storytelling is the balance point between Order and Chaos, makes it all the more impossible to resist following. (And it isn’t like I’m famous for my ability to resist storytelling in almost any of its forms.)

There is something that happens, at 92% into the story, that made me put down my Kindle for a full weekend. I simply couldn’t process it, and I didn’t want to process it; I was shocked, hurt, appalled, and enraged. Obviously I picked up my Kindle again, but it was a close-fought battle between going on and simply causing all sorts of havoc and ruin to collapse onto a certain wicked Authoress. She knows Authorial Privilege…I know voodoo.

It’s a sign of how deeply invested I am in Irene, in Kai, even in Vale and Catherine, that I was able to stop percolating my fury through the ground-up outrage and betrayal.

I’m a little bit shell-shocked even yet.

I’ll stay within the bounds of propriety, though, and not discuss it in spoilery detail. Let’s say that, at this point in an ongoing series, things need to shake up and people need to bring their analytical A-game to bear on the underpinnings of the tale. Some very obvious issues have never been so much as gestured at in the first seven books, like “who exactly founded the Library, where’s the Language from, and what the Devil is up with this treaty idea anyway?!” This book is both gesture and resolution.

And this book is the point where everything, I mean everything, changes for the Scooby-group: Vale, Catherine, Kai, and Irene are never going to be the same within or without. Their entire gestalt is altered and, in my never-remotely humble opinion, for the better. They go through more testing fires in this installment than in previous ones, only this time it’s not the faintly repetitive “we’ll climb that hill when we come to it” task-oriented slog that it can feel as though they are by now. I mean…I’ve been here for seven books, I’m reading book eight, I know what to expect…and I still want to know what happens. So Author Cogman does what a smart Dungeon Master does and explains why we’ve gone round the houses this many times and uses that pent-up energy to propel the series onto a different orbitt around the same story.

There are things that I question about the Language still, so I’m primed to pick up book nine. There are ways the Big Burning Questions got answered in this book that leave me wondering what exactly it was that I saw…and that’s exactly what I want in a series read! So hasten to the bookery of your choice and pre-order this latest adventure from the Multiverse’s coolest Librarian-cum-Ninja-via-Bond private story hoard…I mean collection!...and let Irene “Winters” and Kai the Dragon Prince and their brood ring in 2022 with you.

Genevieve Cogman says that The Untold Story is not the end of the series, just the end of the "current season." All I know is that I consider it a great ending to a beloved series. All the answers, resolutions to ongoing conflicts, and satisfying conclusions to every pre-existing and new plotline. Ms. Cogman is fair to all of the characters and the Library. I hope this is not the end because I am going to miss Irene and her friends.

In the aftermath of The Dark Archive Irene is both shaken and angry. It turns out rogue Librarian Alberich, who has tried to kill Irene and her friends numerous times (and has successfully killed other Librarians plenty of times) may actually be Irene's biological father. It naturally leads to questions like: who knew this? and why did no one tell Irene? Questions she very much wants the answers to. But she isn't given time to wonder about them. Worlds are disappearing, Alberich has agreed to sign a truce, Fae are starting to worry that the Library is Up-To-Something. And Irene, Kai, Vale, and Catherine are starting to gather evidence that suggests that some of the myths dragons ignore and Alberich's conspiracy theories lead to the very heart of why the Library was created-and who created it.

The Untold Story is a fast paced thriller adventure story that feels like it has more in common with the original Invisible Library than several other books in the series. While the first book remains my all time favorite, Untold Story may have become my second favorite in the series. It's hard to write about the story without giving away spoilers- but this book rocked!

Throughout the series we've seen Irene go from book thief to reluctant diplomat and here she gets to be her best (and worst) self. That may be the theme of Untold Story overall in fact: when are we willing to do bad things with good intentions or good things with questionable intentions. a version of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"? Irene has struggled with this moral dilemma for a while now and has a harder time with it when she has to worry that maybe, as Alberich's daughter, she would have a predisposition for questionable actions. And she still has a tendency to take on too much guilt over choices that aren't hers- when Catherine, Vale, and Kai choose to help her they are doing it because of friendship, or because they believe it is the right thing to do, not because she's tricked them into helping her. Sadly, no one ever points out that Irene's feelings make her her own person and not her father's daughter.

Vale, Kai, and Catherine each get some good action here. Catherine in particular gets a great, if short, "Librarian rant" towards the end that will have you cheering. It's something you can easily imagine a younger Irene saying, and something probably most of us who were drawn originally to this series on hearing the phrase "magical Library" will love. It definitely made her a hero for me. Vale gets to come through with true Sherlockian flair several times and this was the first book in the series where I was happy with Kai and Irene as lovers.

The only spoilers I will grant the reader are these: just when you start to panic that the book can't possibly be long enough to solve everything, Genevieve Cogman pulls off another brilliant solution and prevents us from a dreaded cliff-hanger ending. And you will close this book with a happy sigh and a grin, a book hang-over, and a need to re-read the series from the start to look for clues that the brilliant Cogman has apparently been laying for us all along to build up to this excellent Untold Story.

I do definitely recommend reading, if not the entire series, at least The Dark Archive before reading The Untold Story to be up to date on Alberich. But really, read the series. In order. Its fantasy world building genius,

This review was originally posted on <a href="https://booksofmyheart.net/2021/12/28/the-untold-story-by-genevieve-cogman/" target="_blank"> Books of My Heart</a>
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<i>Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.</i>

4.5 hearts

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/145608-the-invisible-library" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em><strong>The Invisible Library</strong></em></a> series is a favorite series with the continuing development of its world with fae and dragons and humans.  We really have grand adventures but the information is very dribbly with only bits and pieces as the series progresses.

Our long-time trusted team, led by Irene with Kai and Vale are strong in their commitment to each other and finding the truth, and solving mysteries.  The new apprentice, Catherine is young and idealistic, more of an added burden than a help. But her fresh perspective is sometimes jarring.  The other fae like Lord Silver and Lady Sterrington play their parts as sort of allies to Irene.  Kai's family is a problem and a political problem.

Kai and Irene, in more scattered moments, decide what they mean to each other and what they want and don't want from each other and their lives.  Because of their family and Library commitments, it is not easy to see a way for them to be together.  The possibilities are difficult politically and physically a human and dragon have different life spans.  But a dragon and librarian have closer lifetimes.

But finally, we get to the story we've all been waiting to hear, Irene's history and the history of the library.  Bradamant is sticking her nose into things and I found it annoying.  She meant well but I didn't always trust her. The others at the library didn't feel quite trustworthy either. Things are finally coming to a head with Alderich.

Irene researches her history, Alderich and what changed him. For the first time, she ponders the Library and who is making the decisions and setting their missions.  When she is sent to meet with him about a truce with the Library, she finally gets her chance to question him and learn what motivates him to fight with the Library.  The meeting erupts into a final battle and race to save the Library and librarians, along with fae, humans and dragons.

I highly recommend this witty, adventure series (read them in order).  The development is slow throughout but well built in the world and characters.  Irene is a star and works so hard to do the right things, often putting her commitments, all races and her friends, ahead of herself.  This series conclusion is a satisfying tale which gives us the missing pieces and a future for our favored characters and this world.

The end of the story and I do not know how I feel about the ending. Loose ends are tied up and the final confrontation is presented. Irene and her friends all join her on this last journey. I just was not expecting the journey to go where it went and end as it did. Still a nice end to the series.

I have been a big fan of this series from the beginning. It has become of the books that I look forward to reading every year. I had no idea that the series was drawing to a close but as I read I just kept thinking how final everything felt. From what I read on the author’s website, the series may resume again in the future but this is the end for now. This book was just as good as I had hoped that it would be and I am so thankful for the hours of entertainment this series has given me over the years.

This series is one that I do suggest be read in order. Fans of the series will love that they will finally get all the answers they have been waiting for over the course of the series. This book had all of the excitement that I have come to expect from this series. It really seemed like the odds were stacked against Irene and her friends but they always seem to find a way to come out okay in the end. Irene is trying to learn the truth about Alberich, the Library wants her to kill him, and Alberich claims to be ready to sign a truce. To say things are complicated is an understatement and Irene’s task will take her to the very core of the Library.

I loved the characters in this book. It has been great to see this group of characters grow throughout the series. Irene is such a strong character and the bonds that she has formed with her close friends are even stronger. I really liked seeing Irene, Kai, and Vale work together as a team. They all are very good at thinking quickly and can usually find the best way out of a situation. I loved the fact that so many characters that made appearances in previous installments were featured in this book.

I highly recommend this series to others. This is a very exciting addition to an imaginative series filled with fantastic characters. I cannot wait to read more of this author’s work in the future.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Berkley Publishing Group via NetGalley.

Being a librarian isn’t all about books, sometimes it’s about delving into mysteries and solving puzzles. After finding out that the greatest enemy of the library, Alberich, may be her father, Irene must find out the truth. When the library orders her to kill him, while at the same time he comes forward to sign a truce she must plumb the depths of the library to save her allies and bring light to its origin. The Untold Story is the conclusion to this mystery that all fans have been eagerly anticipating.

The Dark Archive ended with Irene discovering the truth about her relationship to Alberich and that is where The Untold Story starts up. Faced with the daunting task of either killing him or getting him to sign the truce, she realizes that there is a bigger story being left untold. One that Alberich has been trying to dig into since he was a young librarian and is what started him on his journey to being the ultimate bad guy. Never fear, Irene brings along her faithful friends to help her dig and boy do they find a story.

Without giving away what is found out, how, why, and what happens, I will just give a little commentary about our characters. I have come to rely on Irene for her practicality. When this series first started she seemed a little more ordinary but as the series went on her strength and power seemed to grow, or at least she knew how to use them more or was more willing at certain moments. What never changed were her reasons. She has a practical nature that appeals to me the reader and the woman and when she used her librarian powers she was cautious. A great balance to the “ask questions later” style of her partner and lover Kai.

There are some great resolutions in this novel. I don’t know if this means this series is over or if we’ll have a brand new storyline. I’m hoping for the second because I’ve grown to love these stories as well as Irene, Kai, Vale, and Silver. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❣️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for my honest review and it was honest.