Title: The Quiet Librarian
Author: Allen Eskens
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 320
Publication Date: Feb 3, 2026
StoryGraph* Moods: dark, tense, emotional
How I Stumbled Upon This Book: I honestly don’t remember – but I will read anything involving librarians and libraries
Other Books by this author: The Life We Bury, The Stolen Hours, The Shadows We Hide, Nothing More Dangerous, Saving Emma, Forsaken Country, The Deep Dark Descending, The Heavens May Fall, The Guise of Another
*StoryGraph also offers content warnings.
Description: To be completely honest, when it says ‘historical fiction,’ it’s rather recent history. Part of the book takes place in present-day Minnesota – part in Yugoslavia during 1995 when the country was amidst a civil war. Our main character, Hana Babić, fled from her home country and is living a quiet life as a librarian – thinking she has managed to flee that war and that other life.
Then David Claypool, an investigator, shows up. A woman, Hana’s friend, fell to her death under suspicious circumstances, and Hana has been designated the guardian of her friend’s son, Dylan.
As the book unfolds, it delves deeper and deeper into Hana’s old life – and it seems that her friend may have died protecting her true identity. Hana is not who she seems to be. Sparks fly with Clayton – will her secrets destroy any chance of a romance? What secrets might she have about Dylan? And who killed her friend?
Why I recommend this book: Another point before I begin – in the author’s note, Esken notes that this is different from his usual writing. Thus, if you’ve read other things by him, you can’t go in expecting this to be the same. This is my first book by Esken, so I can’t provide any contrasts – all I can say is that I couldn’t put this down.
That all being said – the writing is outstanding. So well done – so rich in detail. There is suspense as the story switches between past and present, and we begin to peel back the layers of who Hana was and who she is trying to be now. The suspense is well-paced and pays off. (There’s a big twist at the end – it felt unexpected, though I bet on a second read, one would find the well-placed breadcrumbs that lead to it.)
There is a lot at stake for all involved, including the romance bubbling up between Hana and Clayton – which is complicated given the ethics involved (which also gives us a chance to consider our own definition of justice). This is not a typical ‘whodunit’ – nothing wrong with tropes, but this isn’t where you go to find them. The story is intense, and the characters are compelling – all of which drives the story forward.
And as someone who reads a lot of WWII historical fiction, it was a nice change of pace to read about a situation/war I did not know all that much about.
Barbara Davis, author of The Echo of Old Book, put it succinctly: “Mystery, history, and a kick-ass female lead – what’s not to love?”
“Hana learned long ago that it was better to be the hunter than the hunted. But she had been a very different person then, a girl forged by tragedy and rage, capable of acts that would stun her current coworkers. Still, the vestiges of that girl must reside within her somewhere, relics buried beneath thirty years of ash and rust.”
~ Allen Eskens, The Quiet Librarian
