The Mapmaker's Apprentice by C.J Archer

The commissioner that helped Matt out in the last book needs help now. A mapmaking apprentice has gone missing and the commissioner would like Matt and India to help him out. In order to do so, they pretend to be a married couple. 

While visiting the guilds, they discover that the mapmaker's guild is also trying to suppress the knowledge that magicians exist. That leads to a very desperate situation where the pair barely survive. They also discover that their enemies may be more numerous than they thought.

Three and a half stars

This book came out October 25, 2016

Glass and Steele #2

Follows The Watchmaker's Daughter

Followed by The Apothecary's Apprentice

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

The Watchmaker's Daughter by C.J. Archer

Down to her last penny, about to be thrown out of her lodgings, India Steele does the only thing she can think of. She goes to the shop of her former fiance (the one who dumped her after her father died) and tells the customers not to buy from him. While she makes a scene, it doesn't do much. Except that one man takes notice, Matthew Glass. He immediately hires her on to find a watchmaker known only to him as Kronos.

Matthew needs to find Kronos soon. We don't learn much about it in this book but it is a life-or-death situation tied to a watch that the man made for him. But is Matthew Glass all he seems to be? Or is he possibly the American fugitive known as the Dark Rider.

Three and a half stars

This book came out June 28, 2016

Glass and Steele #1

Followed by The Mapmaker's Apprentice

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Secrets of the Lost Ledgers by C.J. Archer

Sylvia is starting to understand how to use her magic and that is making her more attuned to other magic. So she is startled to pick up a book and sense that there may be an invisible message. She consults her friend to find out what it says and discovers that it is a message from a relative of the man who the professor explored for so many years. And the author of the message was married to a paper magician. Could that person be her family? 

The investigation leads them into the world of horseracing and across the tracks of an old enemy. The ending was a bit more confusing than it needed to be but it does move the needle on Sylvia finding her family a little bit further.

Three  stars

This book came out September 3, 2024

Glass Library #5

Follows The Dead Letter Delivery

Followed by The Journal of a Thousand Years

Borrowed as audiobook from Hoopla

Opinions are my own

The Dead Letter Delivery by C.J. Archer

At the end of the last book, Sylvia found a clue to her mother's past. Fairly soon into this book, we have confirmation of her link to Marianne Folgate. Sylvia also gets a link to her grandparents in the form of letters that arrived after they were killed. The first several that she reads are bills but then come several, asking for her mother's hand in marriage. It seems that her mother had magic and word had gotten around. 

There is one man, Reid, who writes first to ask for Marianne to be married to his son, then three years later asking if they know where the is son is. Could it be that Marianne and Robin's disappearances are related?

This line of questioning will take them around London and to an old sanitarium. It's still in use for the soldiers coming back from the war but does it have any connections to the past?

Three and a half stars

This book came out March 5, 2024

Glass Library #4

Follows The Untitled Books

Followed by Secrets of the Lost Ledgers

Borrowed as audiobook from Hoopla

Opinions are my own

The Untitled Books by C.J. Archer

Apparently, books that have never been published might be called "untitled." We're told that a few times in this book. We are also reminded, a lot, that the Glass Library has books about magic, not magic books. It's a small thing but this book isn't that long, was the author afraid that we were going to forget?
It's that point that becomes important when Lady Stanhope comes to the library wanting to know if the books she's just acquired are magical books. She is obsessed with magic and paid quite a bit of money for the set. Of course, neither Sylvia nor the professor are sure though both are intrigued by the books which seem to have been written by an author who was popular many years before for a treacly sweet children's book.
Normally, Sylvia wouldn't care but Gabe and Alex have been pulled into the murder of a bookbinder, the same bookbinder Lady Stanhope bought the books from. Could it be that the books are what the killer was looking for?

Three stars

This book came out September 5, 2023

The Glass Library #3

Follows The Medici Manuscript

Followed by The Dead Letter Delivery

Borrowed as audiobook from Hoopla

Opinions are my own

The Medici Manuscript by C.J. Archer

Sylvia is still working in Glass Library with Professor Nash and they've discovered an interesting manuscript. There are markings that seem like the book may have come from the well-known Medici family. But there are other markings as well. Some that seem like they might point to some potent magic. 

The whole gang is there again, Sylvia's friend, Gabe, Gabe's aunt, and his friend. And they're all trying  to figure out what they mean. But then the book disappears. Plus, there's the whole "people trying to kidnap Gabe" issue and him discovering more about his own magic.

An interesting addition to the series and at least one impediment to the path for Sylvia and Gabe gets removed. But that plot point could come back later.

Three stars
This book came out March 7, 2023

Follows The Librarian of Crooked Lane

Followed by The Untitled Books

Borrowed as audiobook from Libby

Opinions are my own

The Librarian of Crooked Lane by C.J. Archer

Sylvia Ashe is all alone in the world. Her brother died in the war and her mother in the flu that followed after. She was lucky to get a job in a library, even if the boss is a raging misogynist. Most women have lost their jobs after the men returned from war. Now she only has her friend Daisy.
It’s Daisy reading a newspaper one day that sets them off on a grand adventure. There is a picture of an heir to a title, Gabe Glass. He has a connection to her brother and Sylvia would like to know what it is.
While she doesn’t find out all of the information in this book, she does get to help Gabe figure out who is creating forgeries of magic paintings. She also gets a job in a library on Crooked Lane, one that specializes in book on magic.

Four stars

This book came out September 6, 2022

The Glass Library #1

Followed by The Medici Manuscript

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Murder at the Mayfair Hotel by C.J. Archer

Cleopatra "Cleo" Fox has been told her whole life that her mother's family was wealthy but that they had cut her and Cleo's father off from any of their wealth. But now her father's family is completely gone and she's been invited to live with her aunt and uncle, the Bainbridges, in her uncle's ancestral home which has been transformed into a hotel. She finds that the past might not be interpreted in the same way by her uncle and that the family is more welcoming than she expected. But all is not right at the hotel and a guest is murdered. Cleo, wanting to be helpful, immediately leaps in and tries to help. She doesn't wish to marry, nor does she want to live off her family's largesse so she is trying to learn skills to be able to support herself. Unfortunately, not everything she does in the course of the investigation helps everyone involved.

A little slow in places, I'm willing to give the series another shot at some point because it was a good mystery.

Three stars

This book came out December 1, 2020

Cleopatra Fox #1

Followed by Murder at the Piccadilly Playhouse

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own