by Kate Quinn
This is the story about a young woman whose mother abandoned her when she was very young, to go off with a boyfriend. The girl has been traumatized by being a foster child.
As the book opens the girl, Alix, is shocked to find that she is locked out of the approx. $30 in her bank account and when she arrives at the coffee shop where she works a minute late she is fired.
She also had a part time job shelving books at the local library but has no shifts scheduled in the near future.
Alix has a young male friend, a designer of vintage clothes. She occasionally has worked for him. He is very sympathetic to her plight.
In despair she goes to the library to hang out. She meets her supervisor who confirms she has no shifts for her for now. Alix goes through a door in the library and finds she is in a new room she has never seen before. She meets and old crusty Librarian who is frazzled. It turns out this library is actually a rescue facility for abused people. The Librarian places people who are abused or in danger inside a book of their choice. Alix says she would like to get into Around the World in 80 days. However before this can happen there is a disruption in the library and among the books and Alix ends up going with the Librarian to rescue some of the people who have been placed in books and bring them back.
She travels through several books, including a Sherlock Holmes book and Jane Eyre. When the people return to the library the Librarian calls upon a colleague, an art expert, to place the various people into works of art until the threats can be determined and overcome.
It turns out the the Library Board has been insisting that the old Librarian meet with them but she has been ignoring the notices. Then it turns out that Alix's supervisor is part of the Board and they are actually wanting to invade this phantom library and destroy it.
Working with the Librarian Alix is able to defeat the bad Board and ultimately gets a job working with the old Librarian.
This was a light summer read, great for at the beach in Mexico.
