love books – Past Midnight Book Reviews & More

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: Words in Deep Blue

Author: Cath Crowley

Format: Paperback (borrowed)

Pages: 273

Categories: Young Adult, Romance, Grief, Death, Books, Contemporary

This is a love story.
It’s the story of Howling Books, where readers write letters to strangers, to lovers, to poets.
It’s the story of Henry Jones and Rachel Sweetie. They were best friends once, before Rachel moved to the sea.
Now, she’s back, working at the bookstore, grieving for her brother Cal and looking for the future in the books people love, and the words they leave behind.

I picked this book up after reading a dystopian story that exhausted me (in a good way), not even thinking I’d really get into it right away. But I picked it up at dinner time and was done by like 10:30pm! And yes it’s a short book, but I read it so fast because it was beautiful.

It is a love story, but not only about romantic love. It’s the love between family, the love between Rachel Sweetie and her brother who died, Cal. Love lost between parents or friends, a secret love, a second chance love, or a not another chance kind of love. It broke my fricken heart because I am that person who’s trigger is basically stories about death and grief. 💔 But I don’t tend to shy away from books like these, I’m eager to devour them just to know I’m not alone in grieving.

This book, with the beautiful bookshop setting and its Letter Library – oh the Letter Library. ❤️ I want to encounter a letter library, what a beautiful concept to leave letters and notes in books. For me writing in a book is a no-no but I want to buy me a copy of Words in Deep Blue and write in it and underline everything that touched me in this book. That’s how much this book moved me.

The actual romance between Rachel and Henry seems like a typical teenage romance. It is a friends to lovers romance. But Henry is desperately in love with a girl named Amy, though his best friend Rachel is in love with him. Or was. There is a “letter” but it doesn’t get read at the right time due to certain circumstances, and then the moment seems lost as Rachel moves on. Her life takes a horrendous turn without Henry knowing any of it, in part because she did move on from him, but…still, it was sad and frustrating when they meet again. But I get it. I get where Rachel’s head space was at.

Now Henry….Henry. He seems like that lovable, nice guy who needs some direction, or a lot of it. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I’m glad he finds it in the end. I’m relieved they both do.

I love that this book was a love letter to “books” as well. Where would we be without the written word and how it binds us all together in ways unexpected. All of us view books differently and this one pierced my heart pretty deep. I cried. I loved it. And that’s it.

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Author: Margaret Rogerson

Format: Hardcover (Owned)

Pages: 456

Categories: Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult

All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery—magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power.

Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.

As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.

Welcome to the magical world of libraries and grimoires! The dedication in the book alone gave me feels. I am that girl who lost herself in books at a young age and it’s a love that has never disappointed me!

The beauty of Sorcery of Thorns is how it weaves this mystery story in one of the most loved places for a book lover, a library or libraries I should say. Libraries are places of magic for us who love books. It’s why I once upon a time debated on becoming a librarian. It was a librarian at my elementary school that made me fall in love with books. I’ve worked in only college libraries but just being around books academic or fiction, it feels like home to me. Just as Elisabeth feels at home in the Great Library at Summershall in the Sorcery of Thorns.

I was swept up in this story of libraries and the directors, wardens, apprentices and the grimoires. Oh those amazing grimoires which have such different personalities! Books speak to us, in this story and in real life. Come on, have you ever told a book it’s beautiful? 😅🥰 I do it all the time.

And what’s a library story without sorcerers, the users of dark magic and grimoires? Nathanial Thorn is a very mysterious young man and he has a demon by his side named Silas. Elisabeth is deathly afraid of them in the first half of the book because she has had no interaction with the outside world. She’s been in the library so long, she was taught to fear sorcerers. I find the relationship between Silas and Nathanial so interesting, especially since demons are…well demons. They don’t feel the way humans do.

We find out there is someone out there trying to sabotage the great libraries in Austermeer and Elisabeth needs to find out who it is and stop them. It is a murder mystery, wrapped in sorcery and demon lore.

It is rare these days to read a young adult fantasy novel that is a stand-alone. But I’ve read this author’s other book and I have to say she does so well in balancing a story and giving us everything in one book. Her stories feel light also, even dealing with topics like demons. This story reads like a fairy tale, so effortless. Sorcery of Thorns has everything: humor, action, romance, friendship, and mystery.

This book wove it’s spell on me for sure. I thought the sorcery and demons in the book added a lot of excitement and action. The characters stood out on their own, but my favorite might have been Katrien – our resident bookworm apprentice who is Elisabeth’s best friend. The romance between Nathanial and Elisabeth is a slow burn and doesn’t take precedence. Nathanial has reasons to keep Elisabeth at arms length but eventually they grow on each other. And of course, I was in love with all the library scenes as well.

This story is a well written, enjoyable, enchanting homage to the mystery and wonderment of libraries and a girl who will help defend it from evil. I’d love to see this as a movie or tv series – with more adventures in the world of libraries, grimoires, sorcerers and demons! As a library lover, this book was definitely for me!

Get it here: Amazon

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