Prah, Constantine and Baryeh Reviews: The Librarian by Christy Sloat #timetravel

I had a what's this day moment, which is why this post didn't go up yesterday with Prah and Constantine's reviews (remember to check those out, if you haven't already).

So our book of choice was The Librarian by Christy Sloat.

Here's the blurb
He’s from 1892 England, she’s in a small library in 2017. And that's just the start of their troubles.

Emme never meant to stay in Maine. She'd come only to find a librarian for her Gram's library, a custodian for the collection of mysterious books she'd promised to protect. On a dark, wintery night, alone in the library, she takes her first glance into one of the antique novels and finds herself transported to 1892 England staring into the eyes of handsome and dashing hero Jack Ridgewell. As each chapter passes she learns you can truly fall in love with a character in a book, that book boyfriends are real and Emme must choose between the real world, and his.

When the last page is read he's gone and Emme feels the cold loneliness of lost love. Will she find Jack again, or will their love be forever lost? The answer lies within the pages…

My Review

In general, I love time travel stories. It must be the whole idea of seeing what life was like (or would be like) in another time period and being able to compare that with the present. And when it comes to romance, there is the obvious complication of one person being dead in the other's time period.

Emme Bailey has recently inherited a library and for some reason, she is part of a bloodline of librarian who are tasked with preserving history and gifted with the ability to time travel through some special books.Jack Ridgewell is a young man about to embark on a trip that will change the entire course of his life. They meet and fall in love, but the little problem of living 125 years apart complicates matters. Regardless of this, the two continue to pine for each other and look forward to the stolen moments they can get when Emme opens her magical book. 

Emme is not your usual heroine who's either aggressively seeking to marry or has sworn off men due to a past experience. She's simply a girl who enjoys life and keeps things simple. I found that refreshingly different, and her this made it believable that she'd fall for the first interesting guy she meets. Jack Rigdewell is an old-fashioned gentleman, who at twenty in 1892 hasn't really seen enough of the world to be insulated from the attractions of a mysterious woman who by the standards of his time is quite risque.

Emme and Jack could have used a little more page time IMO, to enable the reader fully enjoy their romance. However, the ending kind of makes up for this (no spoilers). I also wished the author had given a better explanation for the purpose of the librarians and why Emme and her ancestors are able to time travel. This wasn't satisfactorily dealt with for me. 

Although, I enjoyed the read and found myself always looking forward to returning to its pages. I hope the author would consider writing a sequel and dealing with the issues above. 

Disclaimer: I bought my copy of the book from Amazon.