The Wren in the Holly Library by K.A. Linde (2024)

Rating:⭐⭐⭐ This book had me in the first quarter, lost me in the middle, and surprisingly redeemed itself at the end. The plot features a master thief, a monster treaty, a daring heist, and a broken bargain. At first glance, the world seemed to set itself apart from the typical Romantasy scenes of late, so I had high hopes. Disappointingly, the middle felt like an overplayed song- too familiar and unsurprising. The characters felt like a copy/paste (tough-as-nails female heroine / dark, broody male love interest) and the plot devices seemed underdeveloped at times. Based on that, and the two blatant typos I found, I would strongly argue it needed one more draft before being published. The ending however, offered a surprising twist, new material to be explored, and an interesting setup for a sequel that I would be interested in reading. Overall, I thought it was a good idea that didn't live up to its full potential. However, if you're not too picky, it was an entertaining read.

SPOILER WARNING!

Warning! Spoilers below!

Overview

Kierse is a talented thief whose tragic backstory includes fatherly abandonment, pickpocketing as a means of survival, and very questionable training methods by her former thief guild leader, Jason. She lives in an alternate reality NYC where monsters (ie: vampires, werewolves, wraiths, merfolk, etc.) decided to come out of hiding, started a war against the humans, (which, as you can guess, the humans did not fare well in) and eventually agreed on a Monster Treaty where they don't senselessly kill humans unless the human violates the terms first. Then it's totally fair.

So, Kierse is on a heist, she accidentally violates the treaty, and instead of being killed by the transgressed monster, she is forced to enter into a bargain with him as payment for her crime. Hello, Forced Proximity trope! This monster, Graves, turns out to be a warlock who is very powerful and very mysterious. He tells Kierse she needs to train with a spear, read some books, and stay away from her friends, who she is oddly obsessed with (we'll get there), until the end of the great heist taking place on the Winter Solstice.

Truth be told, I don't really have an issue with the plot. I think this had the makings of a simple, yet interesting fantasy read. I liked the heist, the training, the world-building, and the Celtic lore. The execution though...upsetting at times. Let's examine, shall we?

Characters

Kierse:

Kierse had a tough life growing up but eventually found her way to her best friends Gen and Ethan and began a fairly stable career as a professional thief for the high-powered players of the city. While I wanted to feel bad for her past situation, I also didn't think this was all that unique. It seems a lot of our Romance/Fantasy female leads come from a canned, tragic backstory that made them ✨oh so tough and very special✨. Why can't our heroines obtain personal growth from screwing up like the rest of us? (Just asking....) Anyway, I'm not going to beat this drum too much, but I wanted to see something pioneering. In this, I was disappointed. I found her character to be underdeveloped and annoyingly typical: doesn't open up, good in a fight, miraculously alluring to Graves. *yawns* She was aggressively average as a main character.

Another thing constantly mentioned is Kierse's "found family" trope. It felt like the author couldn't stop making explicit references to her "chosen family" or "her selected family" etc. Her undying devotion to Gen and Ethan felt forced and became irritating how often she asked if they would be safe while she trains. Like yes, girl, they're fine. You asked the same question three times. I know she considers them family because they took her in during a hard time of her life, but her obsessive devotion to them felt like the eternal sunshine of a golden retriever's love: everything you want in a dog... kind of weird in a human.

She's also obsessed with asking Graves about herself, trying to learn about where she came from. He's a centuries-old being and the only thing she's interested in asking about is her own magical potential. If I were Graves, I'd find her conversation to be petulant and self-absorbed. She lacked focus, intention, and emotional believability.

Graves:

Graves also felt canned- dark, mysterious character, hard to know, swirling dark tattoos, "dangerous" magic...*yawns again*. It wasn't refreshing in any way. Plus, we rarely see him exhibit this so-called 'powerful magic'. It took a long time to get much backstory about him which is problematic because I don't feel connected to him as a character. I barely knew anything about him until 200 pages in. This was truly a missed opportunity to delve deeper into warlock and Celtic lore, not to mention the several centuries of history he experienced.

Eventually we did learn more about him via his old humorously British mentor (a scene I did enjoy reading). And in the ending, there might be a potential narrative shift for him and I like this new element. I just wish it had been built in before the final chapters to keep the reader guessing.

Gen and Ethan:

For two characters that mean more than life itself to Kierse, we didn't learn much about them. Gen is the daughter of a Madam of a brothel and Ethan...I don't even remember his story it was that uneventful. Again, we don't get anything compounded on their characters until the very end when we realize they might also possess ancient Celtic magic which would make them slightly more interesting than the house mice they were for the entire novel.

Dialogue

Linde had me for maybe 30 pages. But I started rolling my eyes when the dialogue turned clunky, the reveals sloppy, and the withheld lore information bordered on nettling. The banter was not witty nor was the romance slow-burn. When they got together, it was super random and without the necessary build-up. The payout was minimal.

Let's also talk about the use of profanity. Just because you are writing an adult fantasy, doesn't mean your characters' vocabulary is now 50% the F-word. I'm no prude, but it was distracting how much the dialogue depended on the use of this word. It often popped up in consecutive sentences in an attempt to add intensity to the dialogue but in my opinion, it was widely abused throughout.

Editing

I do think it's worth mentioning the sloppy editing in this novel because that's on the publishers. Red Tower Books with Entangled Publishing has a spotlight on them right now with Rebecca Yarros' Emperyan series and should be more careful with their publications. I found two glaring typos: one where it looks like they completely mistyped word and another where they clearly changed a character from male to female and forgot to change a pronoun mid-sentence. That's a big issue to have two blatant mistakes after publishing.

Furthermore, the underdeveloped nature of the characters and dialogue really warranted an additional draft in my opinion. I do think that if they spent a little more time and crafted this more carefully, The Wren could have been elevated to a much higher plane. Shame honestly.

Diversity

I'm going to say something bold here: the diverse sexualities of the characters didn't work for me, and here's why. When a character's whole personality is their sexuality, that's just poor character development and slightly insulting to the character. It is imperative to write diverse characters with a rich and complex life, not just diverse traits. In the same vein, over five characters had random, one-off mentions of varying sexualities which I felt were thrown in there simply for the sake of it. All I ask is, if you're going to create characters, create dynamic, believable people- don't just add traits to check a societal box.

Ending:

I was originally going to give this book two stars until I got to the ending. Linde, I applaud you on a solid, satisfying, and exciting ending. It was perfectly set up for the next book, I'm invested in the overall quest, we experienced some believable setbacks, and now I'm curious how it ends.

The Oak and Holly Kings (Lorcan and Graves) duke it out with the victor being long-established from the mythology of the change of season. That's fine, saw that coming. But Kierse's reveal...I didn't expect. I was impressed. She's a will-o-the-wisp, the last of the Fae, and possibly part of a Celtic mythological trio with Gen and Ethan (?). What does all that mean? I don't know, but now I want to!

Lorcan steals the sword and the spear upon defeating Graves and ushering in summer. Graves reveals he's brewing a whole plot for an ancient, powerful spell and needs to recover four magical items (the sword, the spear, the cauldron and the stone). This is exciting because it sets up a great quest, a potential shift in Graves' character, and an impending conflict for Kierse. I admit, I'm curious to see where this goes. It was a solid ending.

Final Thoughts

Overall, this was a unique idea for a Romantasy book. I think if the characters had been more original and developed, this could have been a four-star read. The lore was interesting, Celtic mythology is fairly unexplored terrain, and we all love a good heist. I hope the author pours more depth and growth into the characters, relationships, and dialogue for the second book because that's really what's holding it back.