Welcome to First Impression Friday! This meme is created by Joe at JW Martin – Storeys of Stories. The rules are:

• Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.
• Did you think you’d love and ended up hating it? Or did you think you’d hate it and wound up loving it? Or were you exactly right?
• Link back to Storeys of Stories so everyone can enjoy reading all the First Impression Fridays out there!

Title: The Mortal Word (The Invisible Library #5) by Genevieve Cogman

Publisher: Ace

Published: November 27, 2018

Reading as: eARC via Netgalley

In the latest novel in Genevieve Cogman’s historical fantasy series, the fate of worlds lies in the balance. When a dragon is murdered at a peace conference, time-travelling Librarian spy Irene must solve the case to keep the balance between order, chaos . . . and the Library.

When Irene returns to London after a relatively straightforward book theft in Vienna, Bradamant informs her that there is a top secret dragon-Fae peace conference in progress that the Library is mediating, but that the second-in-command dragon has been stabbed to death. Tasked with solving the case, Vale and Irene immediately go to 1890s Paris.

Once they arrive, it seems that the murder victim had uncovered evidence suggesting that he may have found proof of treachery by one or more Librarians. But to ensure the peace of the conference, some Librarians are already hostages in the dragon and Fae courts. To save the captives, including her parents, Irene must get to the bottom of this murder—but was it dragon, Fae, or even a Librarian who committed the crime? (from Goodreads)

I have loved every book of the series so far. All of them. This is one of my favorite series ever. So, when I got accepted from NetGalley for this ARC I jumped right on it. Cogman has not disappointed me.

Page one, we jump right into the action. No preamble or beating around the bush. I love that. Obviously, being the fifth book of the series you are expected to already be familiar with the core cast of characters and their motivations so you really don’t need much set up.

The plot itself is also very attention grabbing. There are three, for lack of a better term, core groups in this series. The humans/Librarians, the Fae, and the Dragons. The Fae and the Dragons have been at war for, well, forever and have met to discuss a peace conference which the Librarians are officiating as a neutral party. Of course, murder and mayhem ensue.

As of this writing I am around 15% into this book but every single aspect has grabbed my attention. We have a romantic interest that the story has been hinting at for FOUR BOOKS! Finally, it feels like something might come of it. We have murder under mysterious circumstances and a staged crime scene and…and…oh it is just great!

I fully anticipate this book getting a full 5/5.

LW reviews of the The Invisible Library series

• The Invisible Library (The Invisible Library #1) by Genevieve Cogman
• The Masked City (The Invisible Library #2) by Genevieve Cogman
• The Burning Page (The Invisible Library #3) by Genevieve Cogman
• The Lost Plot (The Invisible Library #4) by Genevieve Cogman