The Last Heir to Blackwood Library

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.