The Masked City by Genevieve Cogman

The Masked City (The Invisible Library, #2)

by Genevieve Cogman

The second title in Genevieve Cogman's The Invisible Library series, The Masked City is a wonderful read for all those who enjoyed Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair or Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London.

Librarian-spy Irene is working undercover in an alternative London when her assistant Kai goes missing. She discovers he's been kidnapped by the fae faction and the repercussions could be fatal. Not just for Kai, but for whole worlds.

Kai's dragon heritage means he has powerful allies, but also powerful enemies in the form of the fae. With this act of aggression, the fae are determined to trigger a war between their people – and the forces of order and chaos themselves.

Irene's mission to save Kai and avert Armageddon will take her to a dark, alternate Venice where it's always Carnival. Here Irene will be forced to blackmail, fast talk, and fight. Or face death.

The Masked City contains bonus extra content – secrets from the Library!

Continue the bookish magic with The Burning Page. Genevieve is also the author of the Sunday Times bestselling Scarlet - which reimagines the tale of the Scarlet Pimpernel, but with vampires, mages and magic . . .

Reviewed by Silvara on

4 of 5 stars

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I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Kai had a smaller part in this book due to his kidnapping. However once he appeared again, his use of draconic powers was pretty cool! We also get to meet a few more dragons, and lots more Fae.

There is lots of cloak and dagger, Irene has to pretend to be a Fae for part of the book. She also has to outwit a great many people, and manages to make at least one new friend. I loved the Fae Train, and how Irene has to use the Language to tell a Story in order to make a few small changes to the world.

The Fae prison was also a pretty neat setting. I liked how it was bigger on the inside than the outside (by a huge amount!), and the way the magic worked both inside the prison and outside in the world. I liked that there was both a new Fae enemy, as well as that Lord Silver was still around. He was even slightly helpful to Irene, when it was in his best interests to be. Or when he could twist his helpfulness into something positive for himself.

Vale was around for the beginning, and a bit of the end of the book. He wasn't as major a character as he was in the first book, but he was still useful. There was a bit of extra material in the back of the book, a list of Irene's best heists. I read the first one but not the rest as they didn't really catch my attention. They ranged from a few paragraphs long, to 2-3 Kindle pages/screens. And the ending of the book itself was a cliffhanger! I wanted to know what would happen to Irene. But it ends with her needing to face an inquisition, but not actually doing so.

This book was as fast-paced as the first one, I didn't want to put it down until I had finished it. If you haven't started this series yet, you need to do so! I can hardly wait until book 3 is out!

This review was originally posted on Fantasy of the Silver Dragon

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 7 August, 2016: Finished reading
  • 11 August, 2016: Reviewed
  • Started reading
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  • 11 August, 2016: Reviewed