Book Miner - The Shapeshifters' Library: Released by Amber Polo - Chapter 1

In this post, I’ll cover the first chapter in Amber Polo’s The Shapeshifters’ Library: Released.

Synopsis

In the first chapter, we are introduced to Liberty Cutter, the young library director of Shipsfeather, Ohio. She is about to deliver her resignation for her post, but her plans are deferred when she arrives at the Shipsfeather Public Library only to find it ablaze.

Most of the books are ruined by the fire or the water used to extinguish it, and the city’s politicians aren’t too keen on building a new library. They provide Cutter and staff a warehouse in which to house the library pro tem, until the mysterious and dilapidated “Academy” can be outfitted to house the new library.

However, this Academy gives Cutter a weird vibe, as often she believes that she sees something, or someone, watching her from the windows. And she’s right. Somebody is watching her with keen interest.

While the community gets together to bootstrap their new library by contributing books and baked goods, Cutter takes some liberties with her position and has the Shipsfeather Public Library join the county library chain.

Once things start looking steady in the warehouse, one of the town firefighters reveals something the city bigwigs didn’t want anybody to know: The fire had all the signs of arson.

Analysis

First impressions with books, and just about everything else, are very important. The story started out as readable, and then took a brief (thankfully) detour for some exposition. Once that was out of the way, the story started up again just as readable. The story is written as third person limited, mostly, with Cutter being the POV character.

One thing that I was constantly jostled with in my reading was the town’s name. After seeing the cover for several days, seeing the word “Shipsfeather” just looks like “Shapeshifter” to my trained mind. No wonder, though, as they’re anagrams, and they both start and end with the same phoneme. I think that, added to the fact that “shipsfeather” is not a common word, or possibly even a real word (I’ll have to defer to the linguists and nautical experts on this one), my mind forces it to shift its shape into a more readily understood word.

One must commend Polo on that clever usage of an anagram in a book about creatures who can change their shape.

Another thing I noticed were the names of the characters. Many of the people in the book have names that sound like they’re James Bond characters. With names like Bliss D. Lite and Elsie Dustbunnie, I’m sure you can see. There are also names that might only be funny to literary nerds, like Webster Bartlett, the reference librarian.

All in all the chapter was a pleasant read with little to no challenges to reaching the end. My attention did drift a little in the middle, but it often does that. While the genre is not normally one I read (shapeshifters), so far, so good.