The Invisible Library - Genevieve Cogman

Publisher: Tor UK

Published: January 2015 

ISBN: 9781447256236

The first installment of an adventure featuring stolen books, secret agents and forbidden societies - think Doctor Who with librarian spies!

Irene must be at the top of her game or she'll be off the case - permanently...

Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, which harvests fiction from different realities. And along with her enigmatic assistant Kai, she's posted to an alternative London. Their mission - to retrieve a dangerous book. But when they arrive, it's already been stolen. London's underground factions seem prepared to fight to the very death to find her book.

Adding to the jeopardy, this world is chaos-infested - the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic. Irene's new assistant is also hiding secrets of his own.

Soon, she's up to her eyebrows in a heady mix of danger, clues and secret societies. Yet failure is not an option - the nature of reality itself is at stake. 

My review
The ingredients for a perfect story are there: librarians (my favorites), different worlds, yummie dragons and dangerous missions. So I started this book with high hopes and a lot of expectations.
After about fifty pages, I started to reconsider. The storyline is excellent, Irene is a believable character (got to love strong, independent women with a quick wit), and the mission is exciting. But why I'm I still wondering what I'm reading? Genevieve Cogman has obviously tried to put together a very interesting story. But in all her excitement, she uses a lot of descriptions and a lot of storylines which makes the total book hard to read. Especially the first part. New realities, objects being told in an ancient language to do something and chaos-infected worlds? I'm sorry, but this was too much and too far fetched for me. However, the mysterious Kai kept me wondering and also the chase of the book in alternative Londen started to unfold in the second half of the book. So, after about one hundred pages, I finally started to feel comfortable in the book and actually starting to enjoy myself. What does the detective Vale has to do with the book? And what history is there between Irene and Bradamant, that Irene despises her so?
So when the story is unfolding towards the end of the book, I was compelled to read further. Unfortunately the book ended in a bit of an anti-climax, when the story didn't quite finish. You have to read on in the Masked City for the remaining part of the story. 
So in all, I'm afraid I can't give more than two out of five stars to The Invisible Library. It's kind of like my kitchen skills: although I can use the perfect ingredients, it doesn't mean we will have a five star menu on the table. I can try, but I'm just no chef...