The Last Heir to Blackwood Library
Ratings19
Average rating3.1
Weaves a spell of darkness that's mysterious and magical, and binds it with a knot of deathless love. --New York Times bestselling author Susanna Kearsley An atmospheric and heartbreaking tale of loss, dark magic and the power of love, this brilliant book will stay with you long after the last page. --Constance Sayers, author of The Ladies of the Secret Circus In post-World War I England, a young woman inherits a mysterious library and must untangle its powerful secrets... With the stroke of a pen, twenty-three-year-old Ivy Radcliffe becomes Lady Hayworth, owner of a sprawling estate on the Yorkshire moors. Ivy has never heard of Blackwood Abbey, or of the ancient bloodline from which she's descended. With nothing to keep her in London since losing her brother in the Great War, she warily makes her way to her new home. The abbey is foreboding, the servants reserved and suspicious. But there is a treasure waiting behind locked doors--a magnificent library. Despite cryptic warnings from the staff, Ivy feels irresistibly drawn to its dusty shelves, where familiar works mingle with strange, esoteric texts. And she senses something else in the library too, a presence that seems to have a will of its own. Rumors swirl in the village about the abbey's previous owners, about ghosts and curses, and an enigmatic manuscript at the center of it all. And as events grow more sinister, it will be up to Ivy to uncover the library's mysteries in order to reclaim her own story--before it vanishes forever. Lush, atmospheric and transporting, The Last Heir to Blackwood Library is a skillful reflection on memory and female agency, and a love letter to books from a writer at the height of her power.
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I liked the gothic English manor and the romance was okay. The ghost part of the story and all that happened because of it was unique, but I'm not sure that I liked it. The way it was written was done well, but that part of the plot seemed like a romance where they just won't talk to each other. I did like the characters enough to be happy with the ending.
Holy cow was this a slog to get through.
Ivy Radcliffe inherits Blackwood Abbey from a rather distant and unknown relative's death. She claims her property, moves in, and finds that the abbey itself is rather run-down, the staff is a bit standoffish, and the surrounding area bleak and uninviting. Nevertheless, she has an amazing library now, but everytime she spends any length of time within it, she comes out with headaches. Dizzy spells. Weird memory loss. She ignores warnings from, well, basically everyone, keeps mucking about in the library, and in true FAFO fashion, Finds Out that there's supernatural forces afoot amongst the books.
I feel like the author was trying to make Ivy out to be some sort of strong, independent woman in WWI-era England, but never really nailed the execution. Lots of things happen to Ivy, but she never really seems to take charge of anything to solve things. Her plans seem to amount to "bumble around until Ralph swoops in to rescue me", or get captured because Ralph wasn't able to swoop in and (immediately) rescue her, because that comes later. Between that and the constant memory loss plot crutch, it got rather repetitive by the end.
Btw, guys don't smell like woodsmoke and leather. Not even Ralph.
3.5 Stars. Story had tons of potential and I feel it just fell short. Ivy, the main protagonist, does some things that felt out of character early on, probably because it was necessary to advance the plot, but the book was not very long, so I feel like some extra story keeping in character and advancing the story would have taken this from a good book to a great one.
A quick, short read that touches on the occult just a bit, with just a tease of mystery. Good, not great, but an enjoyable read.
