The Lost Plot by Genevieve Cogman

The Lost Plot is book 4 in the Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman. This series has moments of great fun for lovers of fantasy, libraries, dragons, Fae, and strong female leads.

In Cogman's world, Librarians can work a sort of magic by speaking the Language. They travel into alternate time periods and versions of our world to find rare and alternate copies of books. Irene Winters is a Librarian with a dragon apprentice and a Victorian detective friend. She gets involved in a remarkable amount of intrigue as she goes about her book finding duties.

In The Lost Plot, Irene and her assistant head to Prohibition-era New York and are thrust into the middle of a political fight with dragons, mobsters, and Fae. In a 1920s-esque New York, Prohibition is in force, fedoras, flapper dresses, and tommy guns are in fashion, and intrigue is afoot.

The tension between the Fae and the dragons adds some spice, Irene is a resourceful and intelligent lead, and there is a nice balance between character interaction and action. I really enjoyed the 1920s gangster setting of The Lost Plot.

The romantic tension and hints of a love triangle are by far the least interesting aspects of this otherwise fabulous series. I wish the author would drop the romance and concentrate on the fun.

I read an advance reader copy of The Lost Plot. It will be released on January 8, 2018, and the Galesburg Public Library will own it in print and as an ebook. If you want to get started on this fantasy series, The Invisible Library, book 1, is available at the library.