The Library of the Dead is such a unique story with just the right amount of mystery, magic, and slight dystopian elements. The otherworld building was great; it was easy to understand and not convoluted, which I really appreciated. Ropa was an amazing, sarcastic, and wise main character - I kept forgetting that she was only 14!

I am very excited about the rest of the series! Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me listen!

3.5/5

This had a strong start and so many elements that I liked but I struggled with the execution and how it was all put together. My biggest issue was that I couldn't even get a sense of what the plot or conflict was until like 50% of the way in. I find that incredibly frustrating. I love that time was taken to create this paranormal world and develop the main character but it just felt like it was dragging because there just seemed to be no direction.

This is a great book, but the audiobook is just outstanding! I loved the narrator and thought she did an excellent job with the different voices. I would highly recommend listening to the audiobook of The Library of the Dead.

If I had to describe this story – and I do – I’d start out by saying this is very much a dark, post-apocalyptic fantasy, where that darkness is sometimes so impenetrable that this is a world where the light at the end of the tunnel is ALWAYS an oncoming train, and the situation is always darkest just before it turns completely black.

At the same time, it’s also urban fantasy, complete with a magic-wielding and very amateur detective and a huge mystery to be solved. But the urban in this fantasy, while it is still recognizably Edinburgh, it’s not exactly any version of Edinburgh that we know – and not just because of the magic.

See paragraph one and the reference to post-apocalyptic. Although the technology makes it seem like this Edinburgh isn’t all that far into the future, it’s also clear that some serious shit went down in the not too distant past – or not too far back along the path that is now trending towards hell while being carried along in that handcart.

Ropa Moyo is the reader’s guide and avatar in this brave new/old world. Or, at any rate, Ropa is brave while we’re sitting on our comfy couches quivering at all of the risks she takes – and especially the risks that nearly take her.

Her world is both new and old, as whatever turned our world into hers has changed everything to the point where 70s and 80s TV shows – which are still broadcast and viewed – show Ropa a world that looks like a paradise of abundance compared to the time and place she now lives.

It’s also an old world, because the “event” – whatever it was – if it was a singular event and not just a general trend hellwards – has brought back not only ghosts and the old magic needed to communicate with them and take messages from them – but also brought out all of the old magical beings, especially the evil ones – that made living beside creepy places a real peril and “may you live in interesting times” a really, really serious curse.

But the fault, the truly big evil, the really serious evil, is, as always, not in our myths and legends or, but rather as Shakespeare so famously said, “not in our stars but in ourselves.”

And only Ropa Moyo seems ready and willing to fight it.

Escape Rating A: The Library of the Dead is fantasy that is so dark it tips all the way into horror at more than one point, so if you prefer your horror-adjacency to not be quite so on the nose, so to speak, then this can, at points be a hard read – although absolutely worth persevering through.

If only to see just how Ropa manages to persevere through in spite of the odds very much stacked against her.

In fact, I have to say that I had the weirdest kind of approach/avoidance reaction to reading this book, whether in print or on audio. Actually I listened to most of this one and the reader was fantastic and if you have the time I highly recommend it.

Even though listening does highlight the “two nations divided by a common language” thing on more than one occasion.

There were many points where the horror aspects, or Ropa’s temporary near-helplessness in the face of either the situation in general or those aspects in particular, made me want to stop listening. At the same time, I was so completely stuck into the story that I felt compelled to keep going.

It was kind of a different version of a train-wreck book. It’s not that the book was horrible, but that the things that happen within it were horrible in one way or another but I absolutely couldn’t turn my eyes or my mind away. It was the whole “watching yucky things ooze” kind of fascination, but I was absolutely fascinated. And definitely riveted. Also, there was plenty of ooze.

One of the things that drove me nuts was that I still don’t know exactly what happened that tipped this version of the world onto the path into hell. SOMETHING definitely happened, but I don’t know what. Not that once the tip happened the hellish snowball hasn’t picked up plenty of speed through purely human pushing, but there was an EVENT in the past and I didn’t grasp what it was.

Maybe in the next book, Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments, sometime next year. I can hope!

What makes this story work, and keeps the reader turning pages at an ever increasing rate, is Ropa. We’re inside her head and she’s telling her story, which does, now that I think about it, mean that the reader knows she survived from the beginning. But honestly her situation gets so grim at points that it completely slipped past me. Also survival alone is insufficient.

Ropa is a ball of contradictions. She is very young, but at the same time she is the primary breadwinner for her tiny family. Ropa’s ghostalking (barely) brings in enough money to pay the rent on the land under their small caravan, feed her grandmother, her little sister and herself, and pay for her gran’s medicine and her sister’s school fees. She’s walking a tightrope every second, knowing that a bad day or bad luck can put them all behind in a way that she may not be able to recover from.

If the difference between “poor” and “broke” is that broke is temporary while poor isn’t going to change anytime soon without a miracle, Ropa is all too aware that her family is poor in material goods but rich in love and that she’ll do whatever she has to in order to keep them together.

But – huge, giant but – Ropa loves her grandmother and can’t imagine a life without her. So when gran tells her to help one of the dead for free, even though Ropa knows it will set the family back financially, she does it anyway. And everything that happens after that, good and bad, is because she was doing someone a favor because gran asked her to. She learns terrible things, she uncovers horrible secrets, she saves herself and does her best to save some others, and she learns she’s way more of a magic-user than merely a ghostalker.

And it ends with both the hope and the fear of things to come, because when there’s big evil, there’s generally an even bigger evil hiding behind it. With the help of her friends, the Library of the Dead, her fox-familiar and her own sheer nerve, roiling guts and self-educated brain, Ropa will take it all on. Tomorrow. After she gets the bills paid.

It’s going to be another EPIC adventure. .Just like this one.

I'm not really absorbing what is happening with the audiobook. The narrator has no voice/behaviour/pitch/tone changes between characters. Her Scottish accent is lovely and suits the book, but I'm lost as to who is talking and ultimately dnf it.
I will try a print version because the content sounds great!

The Library of the Dead by T. L. Huchu
Narrated by: Tinashe Warikandwa
Publication Date: June 1, 2021
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Description from NetGalley…
“When ghosts talk - She will listen

Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker – and they sure do love to talk. Now she speaks to Edinburgh’s dead, carrying messages to those they left behind. A girl’s gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead whisper that someone’s bewitching children – leaving them husks, empty of joy and strength. It’s on Ropa’s patch, so she feels honor-bound to investigate. But what she learns will rock her world.

Ropa will dice with death as she calls on Zimbabwean magic and Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. And although underground Edinburgh hides a wealth of dark secrets, she also discovers an occult library, a magical mentor and some unexpected allies.

Yet as shadows lengthen, will the hunter become the hunted?”
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Thank you to @netgalley @macmillan.audio @torbooks for the ALC in return for my honest review.
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My thoughts…
Interesting theme. But, I had to get pass the narrator. She wasn’t bad but she wasn’t great. I felt there could have been more intonations and rhythm to the narration, because it sounded flat and leveled for the most part. The plot and theme were interesting with a mixture of supernatural, fantasy and mystery. It started slow, and then went super fast at the end. I liked the setting of a somewhat dystopian Edinburgh. The world building was laid out well and the magic was explained in the themes of entropy but backwards (if that makes sense) and thermodynamics. It was all really interesting, but I would probably have enjoyed it more if I read the physical book.

This book was really interesting and it's written in a way that gets you pulled into the story, like you're in Edinburgh right next to Ropa and company, trying to solve a mystery!

The writing style can be described by fast. It's a fast narration, description packed, a lot of internal monologues. It helped to understand the MC.

I loved all the Scottish slang and the narrator's voice was just perfect. Luckily I'm a bit used to the slang so I think I understood most of it. It was fun!
I will always love ghost stories set in Edinburgh and I need to visit asap and meet a couple friendly ghosts, too.

I will definitely read the sequel and follow the characters into another creepy adventure.

I found her voice irritating and the writing just.. was not good. A lot of inner monologue and side comments. It kept me from really caring about the story because some of the things Ropa said was annoying.

The library of the dead is such a good name and topic but it’s barely mentioned and it takes a long time to get the story started.

The narrator had a heavy Scottish accent which works really well but I like to listen to my audios a little faster but I couldn’t do that. She felt a little monotone to me too so I switched between the audio and the epub. I didn’t like this at all and I’m so sad.

First things first: LOVED the narrator. Tinashe Warikandwa was the best part of this reading experience, because I truly loved how her voice read out the wit of this book. 5/5 stars for narration.

The story itself was a little bit messier, but not horribly! It just felt like the beginning was 90% “here’s what Ropa does with her power, isn’t it cool?” and the second half was all action to finish off the plot point that was barely mentioned in the first half. I loved the moments of Ropa delivering messages from ghosts to their loved ones and would have read a whole book about just this. But the plot twist is very easy to guess for the second half; if anything, I guessed it by the third chapter or so.

LOVED Grandma though, she was probably my favorite character in the book. She was a delight and made me feel like I was wrapped in a warm blanket.

Overall, very entertaining and I’ll probably read any sequels, should they come out.

Ropa is SUCH a badass. The dystopian world in this novel is engrossing. I think this is more YA than adult fantasy. It’s a bit violent and gory but like, less than The Gilded Ones, which is still YA. Maybe it’s because Ropa curses a lot lol. Adding to my “hp alternatives” shelf because magic based off of science and a secret society totally count.

I really enjoyed this book! I liked the premise, I thought it was unique. It was also nice to read a book set in Scotland, which you don’t normally come across outside of historical fiction, never mind fantasy/horror.

Set in post-apocalyptic Edinburgh, Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker in order to support her grandmother and younger sister. When a dead mother comes to her to ask for help in finding her lost son, Ropa turns her down because she can’t pay. Despite her hard-nosed business sense, Ropa agrees to search for the missing boy. It leads her to the library of the dead.

This fantasy/mystery is very well written, the world-building so good that it is easy to imagine what Ropa sees everyday – the extreme poverty, the squalor, the corrupt cops, the ghosts of people still tethered to the real world. Ropa is well-written and hard not to like as are her friends and grandmother. The storyline is complex and dark.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Net Galley for providing a free e-audio copy of this book in exchange for my review.

I wasn't really sure what to expect when I requested this book. I love ghost stories and hauntings, all related topics, but some are just not done well. And audiobooks can be a challenge if you have the wrong narrator. But overall, I really did enjoy this audiobook. The narrator gave the right accent to the text and I felt like I was following along with Ropa through the story and her investigations. (Though I did speed up the playback a bit, as it seemed laggy.) There were times that I wished for a print copy to see some of what was being said - I'm American, I know little of Scotland, honestly - but it really didn't take away from the story for me. I was still invested in the story and wanted to see where we were going next.

This is a 3.5 star book for me, but I'm going to round up to 4 stars because the narration really added the atmosphere I needed to really get pulled into the story.
This was my first book by TL Huchu, but I'll be looking for more!

I'm giving this story 3 stars because it has raw potential, but there was something about the narrator that threw me off. She was too monotone, no inflection in her speech, although I did LOVE her accent. May still pick up a hard copy and do a reread.

I was really excited for this book but sadly enough I didn't really enjoy it as much I thought I would. It wasn't for me, but I can see a lot of people who will enjoy this book.

Set in post-apocalyptic Edinburgh, 14-year-old Ropafadzo (Ropa) Moyo has dropped out of school to become a ghost talker. She's an entrepreneur who earns her living carrying messages from Edinburgh's dead to their still-living loved ones in order to support her blind grandmother and younger sister. Ropa encounters a newly dead ghost named Nicola who begs Ropa to find her son, Ollie, who went missing shortly before her death. Ropa is hesitant to take on the case- she's highly practical and can't see how she'll be able to get paid for her work. Soon, Ropa becomes aware of other children who have disappeared under suspicious circumstances - she can't help but agree to search for Ollie and the others. Along the way, she meets a colorful cast of characters that offer support and assistance. With the help of her Mbira, her pet fox, River, and some Zimbabwean magic, she seeks to solve the mystery while making enough cash to pay the rent on their caravan.
First things first - I absolutely loved Ropa! She was as tough as she was charming, taking the weight of the world on her shoulders to provide for her sister and grandmother by whatever means necessary, but unable to resist helping those in need. She was sassy, beyond direct, spunky and street smart, sporting her trademark dreadlocks and black lipstick - what a character. I enjoyed the dark, creepy atmosphere that the author and narrator beautifully set in futuristic Edinburgh. I also enjoyed the depth of the book - beyond its urban fantasy plot, there was mix of elements of horror, mystery and sci-fi that really grabbed my attention and held on. I found this book to be a very unique premise, well executed.

Thank you to @Netgalley and @macmillian.audio for providing me with this audiobook in exchange for my honest review. I thought the audiobook was fantastic. The accents portrayed by narrator Tinashe Warikandwa added a lot of dimension to the story and particularly to Ropa. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series and I hope the same narrator is used going forward.

When I read in the synopsis that this book was "Sixth Sense meets Stranger Things", I was excited to read it. Unfortunately, it missed the mark. I never really lost myself in the story, never really cared about what happened next. It felt extremely discombobulated to me, it never really grabbed me.

That's very unfortunate because I really liked Ropa, the young and sassy protagonist, as well as her relationship with her grandmother. I think there was a lot of good story to develop there, but it fell short.

<b>The Library of the Dead</b> follows Ropa, a ghostalker who is trying to make ends meet and take care of her family when she’s pulled into a big mystery. This new job, which involves prematurely aged children, isn’t being paid for though so she’ll have to juggle this with her ordinary job.

This was a beautiful, enticing story set in Edinburgh. I initially had trouble getting into it as I was confused about the world and location. I had trouble determining whether this story took place in the past, present, future or alternative present. Once I got unconfused I really loved the location. Edinburgh was cold, harsh and dangerous but also filled with plenty of history. I really loved the class system where the rich could spend money on frivolous purchases and the poor struggled for daily necessities.

The characters were amazing with Ropa being such a complex and engaging character. I could really understand and sympathize with all her struggles and heartaches. Although she could come off as cold I could understand how and why she became this way. Her constant struggles for survival didn’t allow a lot of time for free work. Her sister was a little too selfish, but maybe she was just too young to understand what was happening.

The audiobook was excellent with a great voice actor. I would strongly recommend this version to anyone interested in audiobooks.

Overall a great fantasy novel. I loved the book so much I’ve ordered a few of her other books.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan for the audiobook arc.

This was such an interesting idea and was executed really well -- I loved the narrator's voice and the way the author mashed up cultures and modern-day Edinburgh with something...spookier. And the audio made it SO much easier to get inside the narrator's head -- I was having trouble with the ebook, but the audio flew by!

I really enjoyed this audiobook, though things got a little more . . . intense than I anticipated.

Ropa is the best thing in this story, a no-nonsense character who can be almost gruff in her practicality. Her softer side shines through in her interactions with her sister, grandma, and other children in the book. I loved her quips and her 'all right, let's get through this' attitude.

There was also a great balance of action and research, though I thought the Library of the Dead would play a bigger role than it did. As to the action, there were elements that were a little more horror-ish than I was expecting (for some reason I went into this thinking it was a middle grade book - it definitely is not).

One of the things that I loved about this audiobook was the intertwining of Scottish culture and Zimbabwean magic. Not only does the reader (or listener) get plenty of Scottish slang and sense of place, but you also learn about Zimbabwean magic and even musical instruments. There was a hint of a potential clash between the two cultures in regards to Ropa's learning, and I can't wait to see how the author handles Ropa learning magic.

One other interesting aspect was the way T.L. Huchu was able to teach the reader things through Ropa teaching herself. Whether it was Ropa listening to old podcasts or arguing her way through the different types of reasoning (deductive, inductive, and abductive, in case you're wondering), it was just a fun way to learn things. Major kudos to the author for making those parts seem to natural to the rest of the story.

The world Ropa lives in, though similar to ours, has dramatically changed, but it was never explicitly explained why or how that happened. Little hints were dropped throughout of something significant occurring, but we never truly find out what that was and it left me constantly wanting to know. If the author intends to have that storyline unfold throughout the series, then at least it would be something to build upon in each book, but I think that was the biggest negative for me to begin this series.

The other aspect concerns the audiobook. Though I loved Tinashe Warikandwa's Scottish accent, it was a struggle when Ropa spoke with other characters. The narrator did not create a new voice for each one (other than Ropa's grandmother) and it was hard to keep track of who was saying what. If the narrator grows a little more in that direction, she will have a great career because otherwise it's a pleasure to listen to her.