In A.J. Hackwith’s The Library of the Unwritten, we learned that unfinished stories live in the Unwritten Wing of Hell’s Library, cared for by a (usually) carefully trained librarian. That librarian makes sure the stories don’t escape and that, should they happen to do so, they’re recaptured quickly, quietly, and most certainly before they make contact with their author. Were such a thing to occur, were the librarian to be absent too long well, then…

… the Arcanist, guardian of dangerous mystical objects, a demon one thought one could trust might attempt a coup and a great many of those unwritten books might burn…

When The Archive of the Forgotten opens, we find that Claire has relinquished her position as librarian to the muse Brevity and that Claire herself has become the Anarchist. Assisting Brevity is Hero, and exiled from his own book and helping Claire is Ramiel, the fallen angel who hadn’t realized there was any further to tumble.

Everyone feels ashamed and guilty and, rather than talking to one another about it, has retreated to their respective corners so as not to make things worse… when, in fact, that is the very thing making everything worse.

The team is forced back together when a mysterious lake of ink appears in the Arcane Wing, calling the damsels from the Unwritten wing to drown themselves in it, whispering in too many voices to count and calling to Claire. For her part, Claire, while trying to gather a sample of the ink, is infected by it. The infiltration is only temporarily arrested by the quick thinking of Probity, another muse, one who doesn’t have Claire’s best interests at heart.

I absolutely adored The Library of the Unwritten but was a bit nervous to jump into the second volume of the series. In my experience, the middle of a trilogy is the entry most likely to be composed of filler, to be diffuse, or to be a bridge rather than a story of its own.

I should have known Hackwith would never do such a thing to us.

The Archive of the Forgotten isn’t as good as The Library of the Unwritten.

It’s even better.

Which, let me be clear, doesn’t knock The Library of the Unwritten down in my esteem at all. It simply makes it the beginning of something even more incredible than I could imagine… and I’m currently writing a historical fantasy about three generations of European queens forming a cabal and using ancient Greek magic both to take down their husbands and to prove women were perfectly capable of ruling a kingdom without a man, so I can imagine a lot.

I don’t want to say too much else about the plot because, as another library visitor once said (will say?), “Spoilers, darling.” However, I will say I snarled like an angry, gold Fury every time someone interrupted me. The character development throughout was also stellar, a perfect balance of incremental and revelatory. Every character in this book is “human” in that they’re confident about the wrong things, make the worst possible choices at the worst possible times, love hard, are really trying their best, and want to do what’s right even if they end up doing it in a completely roundabout way. I love them all.

Also, there is a ship I did not see coming but upon whose hill I will now die. Someone please do me a fan art.

The aspect of this second entry in the trilogy that struck me most is that The Archive of the Forgotten is darker than its predecessor, both in tone and in imagery. For example? The invasion of the unfathomable pool of ink physically cloaking the Arcane wing in shadow, invading the physical forms of the characters, changing their appearances and even climbing into their minds.

We also discover that when stories die, their bodies and souls aren’t granted a quick, clean separation from this life. There’s another wing, a hidden wing, where they’re transported to rot and disintegrate slowly, moaning and wailing and in pain all the while.

I think my heart stopped.

I mean, I loved it. I love any writing that affects my emotions this powerfully because I don’t typically respond to books so viscerally. And the world is a dark place. Not just right now, although right now it does feel as though we’re all wrapped in a particularly dire aura. It’s always dark because people are people and humanity has a short memory and we do forget stories. We forget our own stories and the stories of others.

Forgetting is easy. Remembering is hard. Remembering hurts.

One of the damsels, toward the end of The Archive of the Forgotten tells Claire, “I am my own story… I am enough.” And that line, coupled with the darkness of the novel, struck me. Because we are all our own stories. But even at events celebrating those stories, it’s so easy for those at the apex of the power structure to dismiss those stories by celebrating someone who sought to erase authors of color or by mispronouncing the name of an author or a magazine. Microaggressions crack stories as surely as meteors; the bleed may be slower, but you’re still going to run out eventually.

The story is still going to die.

So read The Archive of the Forgotten. Enjoy it as a story. And then look deeper and learn the lesson it offers. Listen to your own story. Listen to the stories of others. Remember them. Save a story.

Save a life.

The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell’s Library, Book #2) by A.J. Hackwith (Penguin Random House) is scheduled for release October 6th, 2020.