I won an e-copy of Joss Walker‘s Tomb of the Queen.

A LIBRARIAN. A SPELL BOOK. AND A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION SET ON ENSLAVING THE WORLD.

Librarian Jayne Thorne enjoys her quiet life of tea and books. That is, until she finds a spell book in the Vanderbilt archives that accidentally gives her access to a magical dimension.

Now she’s hunted by a magic-wielding terrorist group called the Kingdom, and the only way for her to survive is to team up with a secret branch of the CIA. Her first mission: Go undercover at Trinity College Library in Dublin to discover the identity of a Kingdom member and determine if the Book of Leinster is actually a magical necromantic grimoire.

With the help of a handsome Irish kickboxer, Jayne uncovers the truth of her unexpected spell book: The Irish manuscript is one of five grimoires that can raise five dead, master magicians, and secure their totems of power. With these totems comes the power to control the world.

But the spell book isn’t the only thing with secrets in Jayne’s new life. Danger lurks in every corner and Jayne must rise to meet her fated role… or perish alongside the rest of the world.

I think My Goodreads comments, written as I read this book, will give a good idea of how I felt about it.

Do you think I was bored? I was bored. I forced myself to the end by pure determination alone. The whole thing is too slow, bogged down in dialogue, explanations of what is to be done, rather than doing, weak characterization, and cutesy book/movie references that did not endear me to the character as intended. Honestly, I felt more for the small, relatively unimportant side character Gerard than ANY of the main characters. And NONE OF IT IS BELIEVABLE, no matter how I suspended my disbelief.

Jayne learns magic is real (and that keeping her in the dark was the decision her sister made is already questionable) and instantly believes, she’s instantly recruited by and joins the CIA, she’s instantly sent into the field (despite being untrained), she instantly meets the love interest and is instantly attracted, she instantly blends in undercover, she instantly finds and is recruited by the baddies she’s supposed to infiltrate, she instantly raises to power and importance, etc. etc. etc. She’s the smartest, most powerful, wittiest, of them all, etc. I found her utterly insufferable. And the CIA librarian department? They’re so slipshod I wouldn’t trust them to run a boy-scout troupe, let alone a government agency. They seem to be an agency by dint of “let me speak to the higher-ups” alone.

I liked Cillian well enough, though he’s a bit of a cardboard cut out. I loved the IDEA of a magical librarian department within the CIA. I think the book had a good idea. But the honest, brass tacks truth is that I didn’t like the book. The mechanical writing is fine and it’s well enough edited, but I was just bored and stuck reading about people I didn’t enjoy spending time with.