A great tale for anyone who loves books, but especially for those who fancy themselves future authors, struggling authors, or really, anyone who'd embrace the title of author in any form.

Myself, I've never found the title of author appealing.  My love of books is strictly that of the receiver of stories, and as such, some of the rhapsodic odes to unwritten stories was lost on me, though I connected with the idea of potentiality.

Regardless, once I got into the story, which admittedly took awhile, I was invested.  I thoroughly appreciated the author's take on Christian theology and judgement, but had a hard time buying into the creative license she took with heaven on several different levels.  There's a serious feminist vibe running throughout the narrative, which is fine, but for the record:  God is no more a 'she' than God is a 'he'; God is Omni; God is all, and while it makes no material difference which gender pronoun one uses, the overt use of "she' has always felt  petty to me. It was a small blip, but whenever it happened it yanked me out of the story, even if just for a second.

The author's grasp of the mythology of the underworld felt less formed, but only if you really stop to consider; the logic of the plotting cracks a bit around the edges if you stop to consider how she's got the bureaucracy of Hell set up.  Don't think about it too much though and it works well enough.

The characters are well written, though Leto's story is obviously the one that is the most fully developed.  This is the character the author thought most deeply about, or had enough life experience that bled through into his creation.  Which is both unfortunate and haunting, though the result is a character the reader can care about and cheer for.  To use Hackworth's logic, Leto is the character most likely to leave his book.

Overall, an engaging story, an adventure.  There's a second book out next month that I'll happily read, and I hope this time around we'll spend more time in the library itself.

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

This was a great novel! I tend to enjoy books about books and libraries so when I saw this book, I knew that I had to read it. I have read a lot of books that involve libraries but never a library located in Hell. Once I started reading, I was hooked. This was a rather exciting story filled with fantastic characters and I had a fabulous time reading it.

Claire is the Head Librarian in the Unwritten Wing in Hell's Library. Her job is to take care of all of the unwritten works that have yet to be completed. She not only must repair books but sometimes has to track down any characters who may have escaped their stories. Claire, along with her assistant, Brevity, and demon courier, Leto, must retrieve one such character who has not only escaped but has gone off to meet their author. They are able to catch up with the character, Hero, but things quickly get more complicated when they encounter the angel, Ramiel, who believes that they have the Devil's Bible.

This was a book that I liked more and more as I read. The characters are interesting from the beginning but as I really got to know them over the course of the story, I grew to care about them. I think that all of the key characters in this book showed a lot of growth. The story itself was really exciting. There was no limit as to what could happen and I found the entire premise to be incredibly imaginative. The story had a lot of layers and I loved how a character's backstory or a small piece of information could suddenly change everything.

I would recommend this story to others. I thought that this was a very well done and unique fantasy. I fell in love with this group of characters and found the book to be very exciting. I thought it told a very complete story and I was quite satisfied by how everything worked out. This is the first book in the Hell's Library series and I look forward to reading more of the adventures of this group of characters as they protect the books in Hell's Library.

I received a review copy of this book from Berkley Publishing Group - Ace.

Initial Thoughts
I really enjoyed this book. I thought that the concept was very imaginative and I ended up really liking all of the characters. The story was able to keep me guessing and there were plenty of twists to keep things interesting. I found this to be a very well done story.

And it happened again! The author is A.J. Hackwith, not Amanda Hackwith. This is her first novel. How do I keep the author name from morphing into a similar sounding name when the database gets confused? Or is this just one of those bugs? 

It's also got a definite twist to it, but before we talk about the actual story I just want to be clear there may be twins in this story but what there isn't is twincest.

Anders and Law are twins so of course they're close but are they maybe too close if Law is the one breaking up with Ander's boyfriends...they've got their reasons for why this happens and while Law would prefer not to do this but there are reasons and until the day that Anders calls Law to come to a restaurant ASAP and break his blind date it hasn't caused any real problems...but, Reeds not like the other dates and while he's not Anders' type it turns out he's very much Law's type.

This one captured my attention from the very start it was good and I enjoyed the concept and the more I read the more I liked what I was reading. "Unwritten Law' is twin story with a bit of a different twist and the story really didn't go as I had expected it would which was definitely a pleasant surprise. While Reed and Law are definitely the MCs in this story Anders plays a very strong supporting role and I came to really like all three of these men but 'Unwritten Law' courtesy of Anders really does belong to Reed and Law and it's their story that we are being given in this first book of Eden Finley's 'Steele Brothers' series. 

Reed's new in town and he's been set up on a blind date with his neighbors accountant or so he thinks because what he actually gets is a fellow teacher who happens to be the accountant's twin. While the two hit it off on an intellectual level it's the immediate physical attraction that leads Law astray resulting in what's suppose to be a one time hook-up.For Law it's a chance to explore his long repressed interest in men and for Reed it's a chance to end his dry spell following a bad break-up but ultimately he views it as a chance to make a friend since being new in town he's sorely lacking in the friend department.

I found the interactions between Reed and Law good there were serious moments, humorous touches all laced with those moments of awkwardness that comes with the beginnings of a new relationship but there were also secrets...secrets that when kept become bigger and seem to be all consuming...creating a chasm that ultimately Law is sure can never be bridged.

 One of the best things about this story for me was the ending...it wasn't so much an HEA as it was an HFN solidly working it's way towards an HEA. Which all things considered for this story is a far more believable ending than a simple HEA would have been. Now all I need to make me really over the moon happy is a story giving Anders some happy because that boy needs some happy and maybe Reed's friend Brody will play a part in it or maybe his happy is waiting somewhere else for him? I know I'm looking forward to finding out especially if their stories as excellent as this one was.

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An ARC of 'Unwritten Law' was graciously provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.