THE LIBRARY THIEF
Author: Kuchenga Shenjé
Publication Date: May 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781335909695
Hardcover
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Price $29.99
The
library is under lock and key. But its secrets can't be contained.
A
strikingly original and absorbing mystery about a white-passing bookbinder
in Victorian England and the secrets lurking on the estate where she
works, for fans of Fingersmith and The
Confessions of Frannie Langton
1896.
After he brought her home from Jamaica as a baby, Florence's father had her
hair hot-combed to make her look like the other girls. But as a young woman,
Florence is not so easy to tame—and when she brings scandal to his door, the
bookbinder throws her onto the streets of Manchester.
Intercepting her father's latest commission,
Florence talks her way into the remote, forbidding Rose Hall to restore its
collection of rare books. Lord Francis Belfield's library is old and full of
secrets—but none so intriguing as the whispers about his late wife.
Then one night, the library is broken into.
Strangely, all the priceless tomes remain untouched. Florence is puzzled, until
she discovers a half-burned book in the fireplace. She realizes with horror
that someone has found and set fire to the secret diary of Lord Belfield's
wife–which may hold the clue to her fate…
Evocative, arresting and tightly plotted, The Library Thief is at
once a propulsive Gothic mystery and a striking exploration of race,
gender and self-discovery in Victorian England.
Buy Links:
HarperCollins: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-library-thief-kuchenga-shenje?variant=41109244739618
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Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1335909699/keywords=fiction
Excerpted from THE LIBRARY THIEF by Kuchenga Shenjé. Copyright
© 2024 by Kuchenga Shenjé. Published by Hanover Square
Press, an imprint of HarperCollins.
The
story starts with a scandal that I thought would end my life. Fortunately, my scandal didn’t kill anyone.
In fact, it pales in comparison with what I went on to discover at Rose Hall.
Thus far, the way I see it,
in any good life you need to die several times to really lead a life worth
living. There are little deaths and there are big deaths. My tale has both—and
the real tragedy would be if this story were to die with me.
I was lying when I swore I
would take this secret to my grave. I had no right to promise that.
*
Granger’s Bookbinders,
143 Long Millgate,
Manchester,
Rose Hall,
Lancashire,
November 20, 1896
Dear Mr. Granger,
I trust this note finds you
in good health and that business is as steady as when last we met some years
ago.
I write to you with an unusual commission. I will not trouble
you here with the details of my current circumstances. Since the untimely death
of my beloved wife, Lady Persephone, it seems the fates are in conspiracy
against me. Suffice it to say that I find myself now in need of your excellent
services and on a far grander scale than before.
The library at Rose Hall is,
as you are aware, extensive. I am proud of the rarity and quality of the books
it now houses, a collection that I have painstakingly curated over many years.
I now find myself in the unhappy position of seeking a buyer for my collection.
Many of the books, due to their age and mishandling by less cautious owners,
are badly in need of restoration. There are perhaps some two hundred such
artifacts. The nature of my circumstances make it necessary that this work be
carried out to the highest quality and with the greatest rapidity. Since no
bookbinder in the North West possesses skills equal to yours, I thought of you
at once.
Please inform me as soon as
you are able whether it is within your means to accept such a commission.
Your obliged and
affectionate friend,
Lord F. Belfield
1
I fell in love with the feel of the cotton
before I fell in love with the books. Leather felt too masculine and reptilian.
Cloth was so much warmer and didn’t slip out of my hands as easily. As a child
I played underneath the tables and made toy families from the scraps that fell
at my father’s boots.
He would never talk to me
about where the cloth we used came from, nor the contents of the books we
worked on. There were a lot of things my father wouldn’t tell me, and rather
than keeping me ignorant, his silence made me more curious. And fortunately, I
was surrounded by the means to nourish that curiosity.
Most of the time we spent
together as I grew up was in silence, folding, beveling and smoothing. I
sometimes wished my fingers could be as thick as his; he didn’t grimace when
schooling leather and cloth into precise lines under his digital tutelage. I
tried to be like my father, but all the books he left lying around gave me
opinions.
* * *
I arrived at the front door of Rose Hall looking more
ragged than I would have liked. My breath was far from fresh, and the hair pins
and clips I had used to imprison the frizzier strands had been loosened by the
bumps of the rickety carriage. I had been dropped at the top of a tree-lined
drive that was at least a quarter mile long, if not more. The December mists
obscured my vision, and I could only just make out the shape of a grand house,
the likes of which I had only really seen on biscuit tins in the windows of
Manchester’s new department store, though I had imagined them as I read Brontë,
Austen and Radcliffe. Even with the curls of mist in the air, I could tell this
was a very English dwelling. As I approached it my feet slipped and shifted on
the gravel, unused to navigating such terrain after only walking on cobbled
streets and across wooden floors.
Lord Francis Belfield of Rose Hall had been my father’s
long-standing customer. He was the only man I’d ever seen look luxurious
without any air of pomposity. The men of Manchester were not known for wearing
velvet, so the sheen of his jackets always marked him out as distinguished. It
felt completely fitting that Rose Hall was an ode to symmetry and a more tasteful
example of the grandiosity of the mid-eighteenth century. It was an early
Georgian home of Lancashire sandstone. Even though my father hadn’t mentioned
it, the period of the building’s erection and the mercantile success of Lord
Francis Belfield were all I needed to know to deduce that the building and its
grounds had been purchased with plantation wealth.
I knocked on the forest-green door and left my suitcases on the
ground, hoping that looked more elegant than being strained down by the weight
of my clothes, books and binding tools. In my pocket, my fingers found the
folds of Lord Belfield’s letter. I inhaled, recalling once more the story I
had so carefully rehearsed.
The door opened and a pair of prominent blue eyes glared
at me through the crack. “Well?”
“Miss Florence Granger for Lord Francis Belfield,
please.”
I took in the lines, too many for the face of someone who
was still clearly a young man. The hand holding the door open was rough and
calloused.
“He is expecting me,” I added.
“No ’e is not.”
I blinked, having not expected resistance this soon.
“I assure you I arrive here at the request of Lord
Belfield himself. I am from Granger’s of Manchester.”
The door widened and there stood a long-limbed boy of no
more than twenty. His movements were almost feline. The way he handled the door
without effort despite its apparent heaviness was quite a marvel.
“We are bookbinders. I’ve been sent to care for your
master’s collection.” I retrieved the letter from the pocket of my coat and
held it out.
He made no move to take it, but instead chewed his bottom
lip, realizing there was truth to my words but clearly unconvinced by me. A
female tradesperson at the door to Rose Hall was probably not a common
occurrence.
“Young man, I excuse you of your impertinence, but I have
been traveling for some hours and would like to rest,” I told him, trying a
sterner approach. “Please fetch your master.”
“’E don’t rise before midday most days anymore. You can
wait in the kitchens, if you like.”
Now it was my turn to falter. I had no way of assessing
how appropriate this was. Should I be seated in the parlor? If I allowed
myself to be taken to the kitchens, was I aligning myself with the downstairs
staff? I was an artisan, not a servant. But a sharp ripple through my stomach
made the decision for me.
“Very well, so long as your offer comes with a cup of tea.” I
sighed and crouched down to pick up my suitcases.
“No, m’lady. I’ll tek those.”
He ushered me into the reception hall, lifting my bags up
to his sides as if they weighed nothing at all. The door chuffed itself closed
behind us with a low groan. The darkness of the perimeter indicated that there
was no draft coming through, nor a single sliver of light. A curtain hung to
the right of it and the man gave it a sharp tug. It concealed the entrance
entirely once pulled across, an odd choice. It gave the sense of being sealed
into the house somehow—not being able to see where one could escape.
Stepping into the hall, I was compelled to look up. It
was a huge atrium, with dark green textured walls and candles placed at regular
intervals which gave the illusion of a warm, close space. He led me over a
black-tiled floor, underneath a vast yet delicate brass chandelier aglow with
coppery bulbs. At the back of the hall, under the bifurcated staircase, he
opened a hidden door which led down to the kitchen. Before I had reached the
bottom the herbaceous and deeply woody smells of the kitchen came wafting up to
greet me. It was divine. But when we reached the flagstoned room I saw there
was nothing on the stove; I could only imagine that months of cooking in a room
with such small windows had baked the scent into the walls.
I was seated at a wooden table facing an array of copper
pans and white jugs with the high windows behind me. It was clearly a kitchen
intended for many staff, but there was none of the expected bustle. Where was
everyone? I shifted uncomfortably as I cast about for something to say, before
realizing that I didn’t know the young man’s name.
“What is your name?”
“Wesley.”
“Wesley what?”
He gave me a strange look. “Bacchus. Wesley Bacchus. I’m
the footman.”
He was telling me that as a footman, his surname did not matter.
Of course there was no reason that I, as a craftswoman, should know the
intricacies of these hierarchies, but I sat in silence, not wanting to betray
myself further by speaking again.
I was grateful when the cook came in some minutes
later—from a pantry, I imagined—but she barely looked in my direction, merely
banging a pan of water onto the stove. My stomach growled something fierce when
she entered, almost as if my belly knew that I was meeting the person in charge
of feeding the house.
I waited for her to acknowledge me, while Wesley continued
to look on with a smile playing about his lips. But she only retrieved a mug
and a caddy, before placing a steaming tea in front of me with a snort. My
shoulders slumped. I hadn’t expected to be treated as a lady, but had hoped
for at least some respect. Would my father have received such a poor greeting?
I sipped the tea, grateful for its sweetness and warmth as the cook clattered
about with her back to me. As I finished, she returned to the table with a
thick slice of ham sandwiched between two slices of bread. There was also a
large apple on the plate and in her other hand was a pewter cup of water. She’d
clearly heard my stomach. But her face showed no compassion as she laid the
blessed offering on the table.
With one last assessing glance
at me, Wesley left, and the cook returned to the stove, making it clear she had
no intention of speaking to me. I decided I could forget my manners just as she
had hers, and devoured the most delicious meal I’d had in weeks. Salty ham on
pillowy bread, with a delightfully sour apple and water that tasted like it
came from the purest spring to cleanse my palate. After greedily wiping the
crumbs off the plate with one of my fingers, I took out A Christmas Carol from my coat pocket and started reading until the
words on the page began to blur. The beast of a carriage I had traveled in
overnight had creaked with the strain of being drawn up even the slightest incline.
Combined with the cold that jolted me from slumber, I had only been able to
sleep in fits and bursts.
I awoke, suddenly, with my head on my crossed arms in
front of me and my wrist soaking wet from my dribble. The plate and pewter cup
had been taken away and Wesley was standing above me, a mocking smile about his
thickish lips.
“I’m sorry to wake you, Miss. Lord Belfield says he’ll
see you now.”
Wesley led me back upstairs, and down a corridor. As we
passed a tall, gilded mirror, I stopped, horrified by my reflection. My hair,
after only days left to its own devices, was now once again completely untamed.
My eyes were bloodshot with fatigue and my skin was pale, making my freckles
stand out. Hastily, I tried to force my frizzed hair back beneath its pins as
Wesley stopped too. He watched me with amusement until I had done the best I
could, and we continued on our way.
I thought back to the last time I had seen Lord Francis
Belfield. His best features were his long fingers, which were always encased
in tight kid gloves that he never took off. Oh, and the smell of him! Rich
pepper with a botanical soapy undertone, which always impressed me. Not in a
way that would make me swoon. He’s not the kind of man a girl like me is meant
to fall in love with. No, what I felt was awe. A man of his fortune had surely
seen more of the world than most. He’d have tales of Saint Petersburg,
Constantinople and Siam. If only I could ask him. The need to convince him of
my employability made doing so inappropriate.
The door opened onto the
parlor, and immediately I could see that the man I remembered from our shop was
very different from the man who sat in front of me. He was wearing a
turmeric-colored silk waistcoat embroidered with indigo plants, paired with
dark trousers. He had clearly dressed hastily, and a thread toward the bottom
of his trousers was loose and trailing on the floor by his feet. I inhaled
deeply but could not catch the spiced vegetal scent that usually accompanied
his presence. He was much thinner than when I had last seen him, and his eyes
drooped as if he had suffered many a sleepless night. He stood up from his seat
to shake my hand but returned to it quickly as if he couldn’t bear to hold
himself up for too long.
“My name is Florence Granger, sir,” I began, but he waved
a hand.
“Yes, yes, I remember you. But why has your father sent
you all this way without an escort? It must have been a frightful journey.”
“Oh, no, Lord Belfield. The journey was fine.” I cleared
my throat to make space for the bigger lie. “My father sent me to complete the
work on your collection that you requested.”
He looked at me aggrieved. Offended, even. The way his
forehead crumpled made me more aware of the thinning hair at his temples. Even
disheveled, he was no less handsome. However, I pondered whether he might feel
a sense of loss for the way he used to look. On my previous viewings of him, he
looked like someone who was used to being seen and spoken of as a very handsome
“young” man. Although he wasn’t superbly weathered, he now had the face of a
man who had endured. A sad wisdom brought the tops of his eyelids a little
lower. His jawline was a bit less tenderly set because his teeth were more
used to being gritted together from stress. I supposed it was grief. He had
lost his wife less than a year before, after all, leaving him with only his
son.
“Why on earth would he do that? This hasn’t even been discussed.
Had he accepted the commission, I would have had the books sent to Manchester.”
Ah. This I had not considered.
I remembered the words on the letter. I was sure that it was an invitation to
stay and restore the library. My mouth was dry as I prepared my next lie.
Author Bio:
KUCHENGA SHENJÉ is a writer, journalist, and speaker with work on many media platforms, including gal-dem, British Vogue and Netflix. She has contributed short stories and essays to several anthologies, most notably It’s Not OK to Feel Blue (and Other Lies), Who’s Loving You and Loud Black Girls. Owing to a lifelong obsession with books and the written word, Kuchenga studied creative writing at the Open University. Her work is focused on the perils of loving, being loved and women living out loud throughout the ages. The Library Thief is the ultimate marriage of her passions for history, mystery and rebels. She currently resides in Manchester, where she is determined to continue living a life worth writing about.
PRAISE:
“Shenjé
rightfully joins a distinguished line of authors who love books and secrets and
know exactly how to combine the two.”—Booklist
"A
tantalizing read that swells with secrecy and intrigue. It's hard to believe
that Kuchenga Shenjé writes of the past, and not of the present. A beautifully
and skillfully written debut."—Candice
Carty-Williams, bestselling author of Queenie
"Shenjé shines a light on LGBTQIA+ love
and people of color in Victorian England... Fans of Sarah Waters and Bridget
Collins might have in Shenjé a new author to add to their TBR lists."—Library Journal
"Powerful,
sagacious and warm, The
Library Thief is both a gripping, multi-layered mystery and a
gorgeously absorbing novel that demanded I return to its pages whenever I
had the audacity to set it down. Without a doubt, Shenjé's wholly original
debut has bestseller written all over it."—Joanne
Burn, author of The
Hemlock Cure
"A compelling novel that starts as a
mystery and grows into a coming-of-age story, examining identity, belonging,
loneliness and friendship within the restrictive and stifling world of late
Victorian society. The
Library Thief is filled with fantastically drawn
characters and with a love of books that shines through the prose."—Katie Lumsden, author of The Secrets of Hartwood Hall
"If this book's a thief of
anything—it was my attention. I was hooked, the story opening with the
tantalizing traditions of a gothic mystery and then unfurling in unexpected
directions, threading themes of identity, sexuality and a woman's impossible
choices into an intricate web of mysteries that would not let me go."—Cari Thomas, international bestselling
author of Threadneedle
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