The Wren In The Holly Library is an urban fantasy set in an alternate New York City. It’s filled with vampires, witches, werewolves, mer-folk, and other fairytale creatures. This was a perfectly average read. I thought the beginning of the book was very strong and thought it was going to end up being a solid 4 star read. That ended up not being the case. The middle of the book sort of lagged, and we get introduced to a lot of characters in a short amount of time. There are certainly aspects that I really liked such as the library and the found family trope. But they came together in a pretty average way. The urban fantasy angle to the story reminded me of the Shadowhunter Chronicles series, or An Unkindness of Magicians, both of which are favorites of mine: but this book is not nearly as strong as those books. Also the folklore angle of the fae reminded me of Holly Black’s style of fae, although again, not nearly as good as that author’s works.

The romance is not very strong here either between Kierse and Graves, instead being mainly physical with moments scattered here and there of emotional vulnerability. I think the problem is that they don’t spend enough time together so the declaration of affection towards the end of the book feels unearned.

So in the end, unfortunately, I have to give this book a 3 star rating.  I won’t be continuing the Oak & Holly Cycle series.