This has been a fascinating journey; a most unusual story.  At its heart, it's a love story between two individuals from different species and, of course, historical enemies.  It's not a stretch to compare to Romeo and Juliet.  But on top of that is an expansive story of a library that encompasses multiple sentient species, unimaginable space, and no time limitations.

In the last book, we came to believe the Library was created by two brothers, Irad and Jaspeth, with the intention of preserving all knowledge of every species so that when the inevitable end of their society arrived, the Library was there to kick-start their restoration efforts.  The problem was that this catastrophe occurred time and again.  One of the brothers came to believe the problem was giving them information and technology that they hadn't actually earned.  This started a war between the brothers using Humans, Caniths and Ganar as proxies.  I don't include the Skeer as they aren't what they appear to be.  For the most part, Livira and her fellow librarians, plus Evar and his fellow Caniths do not want to see the Library destroyed - with a couple notable exceptions within his siblings.

As this story starts, the three groups that escaped through portals from a burning library are making their way to their goals.  Evar, being unconscious, was carried through one portal by his brother Mayland whose goal is to destroy the Library.  Evar's goal is simple:  find Livira.  Livira, with the surviving librarians and a couple others they rescued from the city, went through another.  Livira's goal is simple:  find Evar.  The third portal carried only the Deputy Head Librarian, Yute, and one of Evar's siblings, Kerrol - they are trying to find a compromise that will stop the war.

The story revolves around the book that Livira wrote over countless centuries and timelines; frankly, I don't understand it.  It has strange properties and everyone wants it.  Apparently, Jaspeth intends to use the book to destroy the Library.  Evil is personified in the character of King Oanold and he persists over many timelines and societies as the one who promotes hate to divide and control.  Our heroes encounter him time and again.

Each chapter changes the point-of-view, tracking mainly through Livira, Evar, Arpix (a librarian and friend of Livira) and a new character named Anne.  Anne is special; she's a young Jewish girl living in the horrible years leading up to WWII.  Her POV included Yute and Kerrol as they navigate through a hate-filled and treacherous city looking for the origin of the Library.  This was, I thought, a clever way to use the Holocaust to epitomize evil; although our characters see the Library conflict as a war between brothers (or two viewpoints), there's no reason why the events of the 1930s couldn't have been the beginning point.

The title of the book is the resolution of the love story but I'll leave it to you to enjoy finding it.  It was sad but sweet.  And even after a second reading, I'm not exactly sure what happened to the Library.  The author gave us an afterword of sorts that told us what happened to the survivors after a great number of years.  That was something, at least.  The gentle reader be warned:  this is a complex story with a huge ensemble of characters to keep track of.  And the author doesn't always spell out what happens; some of it, you need to figure out.  I'm glad I read it but I doubt I could find the resilience to read it again.   ~  Catherine Book

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