“She clearly wanted to swim in the misery of her grief.”

The protagonist in The Library Thief, Florence Granger, was forced to walk a very fine line between black and white. She was born to a white father and a Jamaican mother, and was taken from her mother from birth. The first thing that mentioned is that Florence’s father made sure her hair was hot combed regularly so that her very light skin and her pressed hair would show that she indeed would appear white. As being Black during that era was an undesirable thing, Florence’s anxiety would rise significantly if her curls started to appear, showing that the nature of her hair is quite different than other white people where she lives.

However, Florence became involved in a scandal that came into the picture that had nothing to do with race. Unmarried and pregnant, her father throws her out. Previously trained by her father who was a bookbinder, she takes a job at the expansive Rose Hall. Florence is hoping that her appearance as being white would permit her to work on this project. However, there was an a break-in and a fire in the grand library. Apparently nothing was stolen, but immediately Florence recognized something in the fire. It was a book, a diary of sorts, partially burned, but she is certain it is something of significance.

Passing for white was not always easy for Florence. But putting that aside, she really wants to restore the library at Lord Francis Belfield's library. When Florence arrived at Rose Hall, she notices with curiosity that it is not bustling in activity as one might expect, And apparently, she soon realizes that she is not the only one that is involved in a scandal. As the story progresses, we see that there are albino’s and other light skinned people that are trying to pass as white. The judgment that is experienced is almost beyond belief for us in our day. Quite naturally, anyone of the Black race did not have the freedom of marriage between races at that time.

There’s something intriguing in the Author’s Note. She mentioned the Windrush Generation, which piqued her curiosity after reading a book with that phrase. This inspired her to write this book. Naturally, I had to look up what the Windrush Generation was. It was a post-war migration to Britain by West Indian people traveling to the United Kingdom. The name “Windrush” came from the name of the ship that carried them. This migration occurred in 1948 and continued until after World War II.

As a dedicated reader, it is always interesting to see what inspires an author to write a book. However, I felt that this book was rather long and almost repetitive in some ways, even though my eyes were opened more about the struggles that people of my race experienced at that time.

I thought I’d mention a rather interesting that phrase that comes up in this book - tabula rasa. This is quite significant to see the path that individuals are often forced to travel. Children are born completely innocent, devoid of any knowledge or experience. So as I read Victorian era story, it was very intriguing to see how race and gender affected people during those days.

Many thanks to Hanover Square Press and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

I enjoyed this book. Coming into it I wasn’t sure what to expected but at the urging of a friend I find that this story was captivating and right up my alley. While the pacing in the beginning was a bit slow, it wasn’t unbearable.

A compelling read with a beautiful setting and plot twists I did not really see coming. I enjoyed the underpinnings of resistance with the women, queers, and Black people taking ownership of their own lives in whichever ways they could. I was also very amused how the main character tried to solve a "murder" when this wasn't anything she needed to do and she got EVERYTHING wrong. It made me feel better about how dumb I am about solving crimes in mystery novels (I cannot solve crimes I never see it coming).

This book had us discussing all the parts we loved and were intrigued by in the story development. Everybody in the group had differing opinions, which is a sign of a well-written book. I enjoyed reading a book not set in the US and was captivated by the mystery and the intrigue of who was behind everything. I wasn't able to guess it until the very end, but I enjoyed being on the journey of discovery with all the characters:)

The Library Thief takes place. In Victoria England in 1896. Florence is the daughter of a book binder. After she brings ,a scandal son his house, he throws her out. Having to fend for herself she uses her smarts to steal a huge customer from her father. Soon she will have to figure out how she will bind all the books in Lord Belfelds library. She soon discovers many secrets within the walls of this diary.
This story was well thought out and well told. I loved it.

Because it was listed as a Gothic mystery, I was a little nervous that it was going to be scary., but that was not the case. It was such an wild ride of a read with a lot of racial undertones (because that was the norm during that time period), as well as secrets and a mystery that will have you guessing who done it right up until the very end. It was very well written and such an entertaining read.

After her father throws her out, Florence manages to get work as a bookbinder restoring the rare books in the library at Rose Hall, but winds up in a mystery finding out what happened to the Lord's wife. The more she uncovers, including her own unknown heritage, the more complex the mystery becomes. Overall, the time period and the historical relevance are the strengths of this book but the plot and prose are somewhat scattered and at times, hard to follow.

This book suddenly disappeared from my NetGalley Shelf app when I still had 3 weeks left to complete it. I have no idea where it went or where to look, or even who to report this issue to. As a result, my review cannot be considered wholly accurate or fair. What I did manage to read before the book disappeared, however, was not very good. The story wasn't compelling, and I hated the way the author chose to write out how characters with working class accents spoke rather than just letting it be or saying something like "he had a Cockney accent" or "he was Northern." It was annoying and offensive, and distracted me from the story anytime a character was written as speaking like that.

I love historical fiction, so I was very excited when I read the premise of this book.

It's 1896 and Florence Granger is the daughter of a bookbinder, who has been kicked out of her home after bringing scandal to her father. Luckily she intercepts a letter from one of her father's clients to restore his home library in Lancashire, and travels there under the premise of being sent by her father.

Once she arrives at Rose Hall she talks her way into restoring the many rare books held in Lord Francis Belfield, who is a little hesitant of her presence since she arrived alone without a male escort, against his better judgement he hires her for the job.

Then one night, the library is broken into but nothing of value seems to have been taken. Florence soon finds a half-burned book that turns out to be the diary of Persephone, who is Lord Francis' dead wife. As she reads the diary a mystery begins to unravel.

I enjoyed this book, it was a bit slow in the beginning but everything ended up coming together nicely.

I love to read about libraries and librarians. Bonus when they are historical, mystery and thrillers. This book did have the historical and mystery bonus. Not sure exactly what it was about this book, but it didn't pull me in as much as I would have liked. I did like the twists.

I was thrilled to take part in the Harper-Collins blog tour for the new novel The Library Thief by Kuchenga Shenjé. This story had a true Gothic feel to it, and I enjoyed the somewhat creepy ambience and mysterious atmosphere it held! I also loved the strong female protagonist. Thanks for my copy and having me on the tour!

A strikingly original and absorbing mystery about a white-passing bookbinder in Victorian England and the secrets lurking on the estate where we she works, for fans of Fingersmith and The Confessions of Frannie Langton

The library is under lock and key. But its secrets can't be contained.

1896. After he brought her home from Jamaica as a baby, Florence's father had her hair hot-combed to make her look like the other girls. But as a young woman, Florence is not so easy to tame—and when she brings scandal to his door, the bookbinder throws her onto the streets of Manchester.

Intercepting her father's latest commission, Florence talks her way into the remote, forbidding Rose Hall to restore its collection of rare books. Lord Francis Belfield's library is old and full of secrets—but none so intriguing as the whispers about his late wife.

Then one night, the library is broken into. Strangely, all the priceless tomes remain untouched. Florence is puzzled, until she discovers a half-burned book in the fireplace. She realizes with horror that someone has found and set fire to the secret diary of Lord Belfield's wife–which may hold the clue to her fate…

Evocative, arresting and tightly plotted, The Library Thief is at once a propulsive Gothic mystery and a striking exploration of race, gender and self-discovery in Victorian England. (Goodreads Synopsis)

I kept points because the themes throughout this novel should be read about. How difficult life was for women, but especially for women of color. However, there were too many themes, and it soon became distracting. Which storyline or character development that might have been important to the overall mystery became confusing.

Overall, I rate this novel 3 out of 5 stars.

I choose to read The Library Thief by Kuchenga Shenjé because, well... library! Add to that the potential of a thief and a mystery and the book becomes even more promising. This book, however, is not much of a mystery and not very much about the actual library or the books. Florence's story is interesting and ends in an unexpected way. However, I do wish a book that has library in the title was more about the library and the books!

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2024/06/the-library-thief.html

Reviewed for NetGalley and a publisher’s blog tour.

Florence has been kicked out by her father. She has come across a letter to her father, a book binder, asking him to come and restore an old library. Florence decides to take this on her own and heads to Rose Hall. But she soon discovers many secrets!

I started to read this book physically and I just couldn’t get into it. So, I got it on audio from the library. I have a bit more patience with an audiobook. I did finish it but it was not a favorite.

When this book begins, your heart goes out to Florence but as the story moves along, I just didn’t like her very much. Then there is the middle section. Now, I am not a prude, but there were like 2-3 chapters that were just about Florence and her past sexual experiences. (She is a bit of a harlot 😂😂). I was like…why are we talking about this now. 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Now, I did enjoy the time period of Victorian England and learning about the hidden race in some of the characters. Pretty unique…all the lies surrounding some of the characters. The story itself is a bit spastic and scattered.

I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.

I was intrigued by the title of this book, but it was not what I was expecting. I found the characters unlikable and I couldn’t relate to them. I found some things about the story interesting and my favorite part was the fact that they got away in the end. This book was just not for me.

I was interested in reading this after seeing a piece on it on NPR. While I enjoyed the time frame and the different historical perspective, it just wasn't for me. I found Florence, the narrator, to be uninteresting and ended up skimming quite a bit. This story just wasn't for me.

Thank you to the publisher, Harlequin Trade Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Following a scandal, Florence Granger has been thrown out by her bookbinder father onto the streets of Manchester. She has nowhere to go, but manages to intercept one of her father’s commissions, and makes her way to Rose Hall, pretending that her father sent her for the job. Lord Belfield has a massive library full of old and valuable books that he wants restored. But as fascinating as the rare books are, Florence finds Rose Hall and its many secrets equally as intriguing, particularly the rumors about Lady Persephone, Lord Belfield’s wife, and how she died. As she tries to unravel the mystery, the library is broken into one night, but strangely enough, none of the priceless books are taken and the only thing amiss is a half-burned book in the fireplace, Lady Persephone’s diary, which might be hold the truth about her death.

I basically saw library and mystery in the premise and added it to my TBR at once. Libraries are one of my favorite settings for books, unsurprisingly, and historical fiction in particular.

I loved the beginning of this book, following Florence as she tricked her way into Rose Hall and a job restoring the rare books in the library, stumbling upon a mystery in the process. But as the story unfolded, I found myself less and less invested by the page and was skimming through much of it by the end. The premise was kind of misleading to be honest, since I expected a historical mystery, and it just turned out to be backdrop for a whole other story.

The author chose to tackle quite a lot of major themes in this book all at once such as racism, abuse, women’s rights, gender identity and more which is something I haven’t seen delved into to this extent in this genre before. I don’t know much about this particular time period, so I can’t comment on how historically accurate this depiction was, but it was interesting to get this era’s viewpoint on these issues. However, I did feel that in the midst of all this, the plot fell to the wayside and became almost secondary to this arc.

The writing was good and it made this a quick read. I didn’t find the narrative to my taste, though, and it really should have come with content warnings, not least because it deals with so many heavy topics and rather explicitly so. I needed to take a break more than once.

The Library Thief had quite the intriguing cast of characters and all of them had something to hide. However, I didn’t find Florence’s character to be particularly likeable and many of her actions didn’t make much sense, first and foremost, why exactly she was so obsessed with Lady Persephone’s fate and so convinced that she was murdered when she had no reason to believe it. And then she started snooping around at night, reading personal correspondence and more, all when her fate depends entirely on this job which she just barely managed to secure. It all became rather hard to believe at this point and I quickly started losing interest. Character development in general was very rushed for the central characters and none of the secondary characters made much of an impression either.

As I said before, as the story progressed, it became less about the mystery and more about the various characters in my opinion, so when it was time for the reveal, it was so anticlimactic and rushed, like the last chapters were just trying to wrap everything up in time. As for Florence’s arc, it felt incomplete to me somehow and I would have liked a more concrete resolution to the whole story.

Overall, though the premise was interesting, I didn’t end up enjoying this book and it did not work for me. It was not bad for a debut, though not a book I’m likely to re-read, but I’m interested to see what this author will write next.

The title is misleading—this book is more involved than it first appears. I thought it was going to be a simple Gothic mystery involving a book thief, but it covers much deeper issues regarding racism, homosexuality, sexual manipulation and assault, unwed mothers, and women’s rights in Victorian England. There were so many social issues crammed in here that the mystery was almost incidental. Still, an intriguing story with a very forward thinking main character.

I must preface this review with a note that I found the writing voice simultaneously compelling and difficult; I am sure I missed many literary and cultural references, which at times made reading on a bit of a struggle. In the manner of Victorian classics, the narrative follows the present and the past simultaneously; it’s not so much including flashbacks as constantly interweaving childhood memories with current events, and not a writing style I am used to or particularly enjoy.

The story is narrated in first person, past tense, by the protagonist, a white-passing nineteen-year-old Black Jamaican woman, in late Victorian England, fleeing some misfortune and landing herself into a worse bind.

Beware: generally, the language of the period; racism and racist slurs; phonetic accents to denote class; parental neglect and emotional abuse; off-the-charts misogyny; marital rape; rape on page; queerphobia; sex on page.

Like every good Gothic tale, the novel begins with the arrival of one Miss Florence Granger to the isolated Rose Hall estate; she’s there under false pretenses, in a last ditch effort at quasi-respectable survival. While she wasn’t quite sure what to expect, having never before visited a wealthy patron’s residence, she’s nevertheless shocked at finding the mansion virtually shut down, with black hangings over all the windows, and with the staff reduced to one groom and the cook to serve the lord of the manor.

“A sensible girl would just have laid there, given thanks and gone to sleep to get as much rest as possible before starting work the very next morning. The problem is, I’ve never been known to be sensible. … If the circumstances of Lady Persephone’s passing were honourable then the details surrounding her death would be more forthcoming. I smelled the whiff of scandal, and I just had to know what it was.” (Chapter 3)

And thus begin Florence’s adventures. She’s at the manor to repair, rebind, and otherwise conserve, a large number of valuable rare books within a short period of time, as Lord Belfield, once very wealthy indeed, is now in somewhat dire straits and must sell off some of the most valuable tomes in his collection. The library, a wondrous place full of knowledge and wonder, is always locked–and so is she, inside it, during the hours she works there.

“Lord Belfield spoke as if I had hiked myself up to a mountain of independence. But I was not safe. I had little security outside of the temporary benevolence he was seeing fit to bestow upon me.” (Chapter 9)

There is a vague sense of foreboding as Florence recounts her experiences during the first weeks of her employment at the manor, mostly stemming from the strangeness of the household, and the multitude of unanswered questions about the recent death of Lord Belfield’s wife. However, lest the reader gets used to that relatively mild feeling of discomfort, Florence adds the occasional reminder of “how much worse” she would experience later on–starting with the introduction of Sir Chester, her employer’s cruel and abusive younger brother, and continuing with the realization of how much she had originally underestimated Lord Belfield’s ruthlessness.

“I got chills around him because of how he could slip from charming benevolent to all-seeing punisher in the space of one conversation. He enjoyed the power of his position as Lord of Rose Hall.” (Chapter 16)

The worldbuilding is very careful, from the physical spaces to each character’s manner of speech, to the imperial influences that reach from the spices in the kitchen to Lord Belfield’s financial reversals. Because, as it turns out, the family wealth had been built on sugar plantations, tea, and the slave trade, and like so much of British aristocracy after abolition, the brothers had yet to figure out how to replenish their coffers.

However, there’s such a thing as too much historic detail when its inclusion doesn’t move the story forward, such as when Florence spends an afternoon at a suffragists’ lecture.

And even though Florence muses about everything, from love to sexuality to politics to religion, for page upon page upon page, to the point where the book drags on, there’s little character growth over the course of the story.

Despite the precariousness of her situation, there’s an innate arrogance in Florence, stemming from both her intellect and her education; she is better read than most everyone around her, and had assumed that made her worldly, if not wise. It takes Florence some time to realize just how complex the relationships between the people around her truly are, though once she does, she accepts them without judgement.

Having been raised by her white father and grandmother in Manchester, Florence was constantly exposed to the racism of the white people around her; from those who wonder whether Black people have tails to those who believe in their ‘innate’ and ‘excessive’ sexuality–which naturally makes them a danger to everyone around them. She is therefore surprised to learn that the late Lady Persephone’s lady’s maid was a Black woman who enjoyed a not-small degree of privilege within the household during all the years of the marriage–and even more to learn of her own ancestry.

I can see what the author was going for with the character and the story, and I appreciate the breadth of queer representation in it; the execution as a whole just didn’t quite work for me.

This novel is very much historical fiction, and as such, it lacks the feeling of “righting of the universe” that I get from genre fiction; even the solution to the mystery of Lady Persephone’s death felt flat. Florence suffers much, first at the hands of her father, then at the hands of Sir Chester, but so do practically all the other women in the story. Surviving long enough to get away to face an uncertain future in a provably cruel world, with nothing but a bit of money, just doesn’t feel like justice.

Also, I was quite confused by the honorifics. The late wife of Lord Francis Belfield is referred to by everyone, including him, as Lady Persephone, never Lady Belfield. Why? Meanwhile, his younger brother is Sir Chester? And his wife is referred to as Lady Violet? Again I ask, why?

(It did not help my reading experience that the ARC had some weird formatting issues, from arbitrary line breaks in the middle of a sentence, to equally random spaces inserted in the middle of words, or the occasional letter floating above the rest of the text; the non-existent table of contents was just insult added to injury.)

The Library Thief gets a 7.00 out of 10

I really enjoyed this Victorian Era mystery. Florence is a woman ahead of her time and I loved that. This story has a little bit of everything; scandal, mystery and drama. There’s an aspect that I really love about the book but if I say I don’t want to ruin it by saying it. I look forward to reading more from this author.