The Quiet Librarian by Allen Eskens is my third read by this author. Thank you Dorothy @ The Nature of Things for introducing me to Allen Eskens works! I've enjoyed his novels very much.
I listened to the unabridged audio version of The Quiet Librarian by Allen Eskens, which was nicely narrated by Ilvana Muratovic.
I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this thriller! It was super engaging. I finished The Quiet Librarian by Allen Eskens in four days. The novel is well written. The storyline follows two time lines, present day Minnesota and Bosnia in 1995. Each chapter alternates between each time line until the storyline converges. Then the remaining ten chapters takes place in Minnesota for the grand finale.
I liked the main character Hana Babic/Nura Divjak a lot. She seems like an unassuming, quiet librarian working in Minnesota. Hana/Nura is 47 years old and originally from Bosnia. At the start of this novel, a police officer comes to visit Hana/Nura at work. Hana/Nura learns her best friend (also from Bosnia) has been killed in a suspicious manner. It's at this point onward where we begin to learn more about Hana/Nura and that not all about her is as it seems.
Hana/Nura lived a very difficult existence in Bosnia during the war. We learn that Hana/Nura witnessed her entire family being killed right in front of her. We continue to learn about what happens to Hana/Nura in Bosnia throughout the novel and how she came to the USA. We also read about Hana/Nura doing her own sleuthing into her friend's death.
All in all, The Quiet Librarian is a great read, especially if you like thrillers. I highly recommend it. The ending for The Quiet Librarian is great. I loved it!!
Below is the publisher's summary for The Quiet Librarian by Allen Eskens through the Goodreads website:
After the murder of her best friend, a librarian’s search for answers leads back to her own dark secrets in this sweeping novel about a woman transformed by war, family, vengeance, and love, from award-winning writer Allen Eskens.
Hana Babic is a quiet, middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who wants nothing more than to be left alone. But when a detective arrives with the news that her best friend has been murdered, Hana knows that something evil has come for her, a dark remnant of the past she and her friend had shared.
Thirty years before, Hana was someone else: Nura Divjak, a teenager growing up in the mountains of war-torn Bosnia—until Serbian soldiers arrived to slaughter her entire family before her eyes. The events of that day thrust Nura into the war, leading her to join a band of militia fighters, where she became not only a fierce warrior but a legend—the deadly Night Mora. But a shattering final act forced Nura to flee to the United States with a bounty on her head.
Now, someone is hunting Hana, and her friend has paid the price, leaving her eight-year-old grandson in Hana’s care. To protect the child without revealing her secret, Hana must again become the Night Mora—and hope she can find the killer before the past comes for them, too.
I am giving The Quiet Librarian by Allen Eskens a rating of 4 stars out of 5 stars.
Until my next post, happy reading!
