Ash and Quill is the third book in the Great Library series by Rachel Caine and continues the adventures of Jess Brightwell and his group of friends. Having successfully rescued Thomas and escaped from the Library, first in Rome and then later in London, they are now with the burners in Philadelphia. That brings with it a whole different set of issues as they navigate the burners need for the printing press and their hatred of all things associated with the Library. Luckily, they are able to gain a slight foothold due to Jess’s smuggling contacts and their own varied skillsets though they are never completely trusted or free. At the same time they also have to figure out exactly how they are planning to move against the library and what their ultimate goal is in doing so.
I may not like the idea of a world where access to books is that restricted but I have to admit that Rachel Caine has done an incredible job creating and depicting such a world. It is modeled after our own world with recognizable names and places but it has this absolutely incredible alternate history that is all predicated upon the survival and influence of the Great Library of Alexandria. This creates an incredibly fascinating setting to use for the story and one that I rather enjoy. In addition to the setting this story also adds a lot more depth to some of the characters as events progress. Jess has to come to terms with how far he is willing to go to take down the Archivist Magister and the Artifex Magnus in order to redirect the library’s path. Something that he struggles with as he knows not all of his friends are able to do the same. I like how this struggle and realization is portrayed because it shows a rather interesting theme. Different people have different standards and different ideas of how to do something and not everybody is able to go to the same extremes and handle it. The story actually handles this pretty good in my opinion and I was seriously interested in how it affected the next movements of the characters as well as their overall strategy. This book was pretty great and an awesome addition to a pretty good series. I am happy giving this book four out of five stars.
Much like the previous books in the series, this book is a young adult fantasy novel. If you happen to fall into that age range and happen to enjoy a good fantasy than I would suggest you consider trying this series out. Make sure to read the previous books though as you will probably be lost otherwise. If you don’t enjoy fantasy that much than you probably won’t enjoy this series very much though you are still welcome to try it if you want. Though this series may be aimed at the young adult or teen age range I could see it holding some appeal for adults as well. It deals with some interesting topics in a fascinating way so it may appeal to older readers. I would recommend that readers younger than the young adult or teen age range wait to read the series until they are older. It does deal with some potentially dark themes such as imprisonment or other similar situations. The book was still really good though, as was the series so far, so I hope you will consider reading it. If you do feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.