#Review - The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

Series: The Left-Handed Booksellers of London # 1
Format: Hardcover, 416 pages
Release Date: August 25, 2020
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy / Epic

A girl’s quest to find her father leads her to an extended family of magical fighting booksellers who police the mythical Old World of England when it intrudes on the modern world. From the bestselling master of teen fantasy, Garth Nix.

In a slightly alternate London in 1983, Susan Arkshaw is looking for her father, a man she has never met. Crime boss Frank Thringley might be able to help her, but Susan doesn’t get time to ask Frank any questions before he is turned to dust by the prick of a silver hatpin in the hands of the outrageously attractive Merlin.

Merlin is a young left-handed bookseller (one of the fighting ones). With the right-handed booksellers (the intellectual ones), he belongs to an extended family of magical beings who police the mythic and legendary Old World when it intrudes on the modern world, in addition to running several bookshops.

Susan’s search for her father begins with her mother’s possibly misremembered or misspelled surnames, a reading-room ticket, and a silver cigarette case engraved with something that might be a coat of arms.

Merlin has a quest of his own: to find the Old World entity who used ordinary criminals to kill his mother. As he and his sister, a right-handed bookseller named Vivien, tread in the path of a botched or covered-up police investigation from years past, they find their quest strangely overlaps with Susan’s. Who or what was her father? Susan, Merlin, and Vivien must find out, as the Old World erupts dangerously into the New.

 

Garth Nix's The Left-Handed Booksellers of London is the first installment in the authors series by the same name. This series takes place in an alternative version of 1983 London. It features Susan Arkshaw, an art student who has never met her father, but hopes to see what spills out after she arrives in London a few weeks before her classes begin. Susan’s search for her father begins with her mother’s possibly misremembered or misspelled surnames, a reading-room ticket, and a silver cigarette case engraved with something that might be a coat of arms.

Crime boss Frank Thringley might be able to help her, but Susan doesn’t get time to ask Frank any questions before he is turned to dust by the prick of a silver hatpin in the hands of Merlin. Merlin is a left handed bookseller, part of an extended (and ancient) family of both right- and left-handed booksellers. Besides running a couple of bookshops in London, they police the border between the New World and the mythic beings of the Old World. After Susan discovers Merlin undoing a villain in his own home, she soon finds that there are people out there who would love to see her dead. 

Fortunately for Susan, Merlin, and his sister Vivian, may have the answers that she is looking for if they can keep her alive long enough until those answers are actually revealed. Merlin is also on the hunt for those who used ordinary criminals to kill his mother. Merlin's sister Vivian is a Right-Handed bookseller with some pretty interesting magical abilities that time and time again get the trio out of danger when facing an assortment of villains and even some traitors among the booksellers themselves.  

Just like in the blockbuster comic book–turned-movie Kingsman, this book imagines a coexisting world—with all the hallmarks of classic Garth Nix world building that will have readers hanging on every fascinating detail. While the action sequences are, by turns, hilarious, gory, and terrifying, all characters find moments of humor that keep the tone throughout perfectly balanced and, at moments, laugh out loud. The Left-Handed Booksellers of London captures a popular decade (1980's) for teens (like Stranger Things). Merlin and his booksellers span the centuries, seamlessly bringing together the modern and the mythic.

A perennial hook for readers. Literature, bookstores, and sellers feature prominently. In this world, there are right and left handed booksellers who double as guardians against Old World magic. Nix combines classic faerie lore with the pacing and characters of a thriller. With unexpected twists and turns and magical, mystical characters, Left-Handed Booksellers is definitely one of those stories that has everything you need to enjoy a story. 

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