Book Review: The Royal Librarian (Daisy Wood). #NetGalley #TheRoyalLibrarian

I received a copy of The Royal Librarian by Daisy Wood from NetGalley. This historical fiction book is set in dual timelines- one is in the present (2022) and the other during World War II. Lacey finds a letter with a royal seal amongst her grandmother’s things. This letter intrigues her and leads her on a fascinating journey to unravel family secrets. I loved reading Daisy Wood’s The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris, so I was really excited to read another one of her stories.

It’s 2022, and after a long time, Lacey and her family are getting together for Christmas. The lockdowns for COVID-19 are easing, allowing them to meet her 94-year-old grandmother aka Gubby. Lacey is a ghostwriter. After a traumatic incident, she has isolated herself to her apartment, and with the lockdown, she barely goes anywhere. Accidentally, she finds a letter from Windsor Castle in her grandmother’s things and is intrigued by it.

Sophie and Hanna Klein are two sisters living in Vienna, Austria with their family. They are happy and content with their life. In 1938, Nazis come to Austria and take over. This changes the family’s lives irrevocably. Being half-Jewish immediately puts a target on their back. The descriptions of how Sophie and Hanna witness the death of their father and their mother being taken away are horrible. Desperate to protect her little sister, Sophie sends Hanna to America with a family that is taking children out of Austria. She visits the British Embassy every other day to find a way to escape. She speaks English really well and is recruited by the British intelligence services. With her experience as a librarian and being bilingual, she is sent to Windsor Castle.

In the present, Lacey’s Grandmother is Hanna, and she finally talks about how she came to America as a young child during World War II and was adopted. She doesn’t mention anything about a sister, and this confuses Lacey because she saw the letter signed by her. I liked the way Daisy Wood has paced the story. We get enough time in the past and the present to understand these characters better. Sophie’s challenges in settling in and her hesitancy while spying make her character realistic. She is alone in a country where she doesn’t know anyone. Her fears about the Nazis and the things she saw before leaving Vienna constantly haunt her. Despite the challenges, she remains resilient and takes solace in the fact that Hanna is safe.

Sophie’s story is told as Lacey begins to research about her, ending up in Windsor. Lacey ends up meeting Anna and her brother, Tom. She slowly starts talking about what happened to send her into isolation and learns to be less hard on herself. Only her sister knows that Lacey is trying to find out about their great-aunt. Sophie and Lacey’s story run parallel to each other. The circumstances are different, but both of them have to learn to deal with their past traumas and try to move ahead. Sophie saves the young royal princesses, but a misunderstanding lands her in jail. Hanna’s adoptive parents tell her that Sophie was a spy for the Nazis and has been arrested. Hanna feels betrayed by her sister, and all contact between them is lost.

The Royal Librarian by Daisy Wood is an emotional tale about a family. It is very difficult to read through the parts set in Vienna. It is so sad that Sophie and Hanna are never reunited again and that they never made up before Sophie’s death. The story has amazing character arcs, especially Sophie’s. This historical fiction book keeps you hooked from the start. I loved reading The Royal Librarian.

*Click on the book cover above to get a copy.