The Archive of the Forgotten is book two in the Hell’s Library trilogy. WARNING: if you have not read The Library of the Unwritten (book one) yet, do not read any further. I know I was not very enthusiastic in my review of The Library of the Unwritten, but I think it would be worth reading just so you can get to The Archive of the Forgotten.

The Archive of the Forgotten finds Claire, the former librarian of the Unwritten Wing of Hell’s Library, now working in the Arcane Wing after being booted from her old job by the unwritten books. Brevity, Claire’s former assistant, is now running the Unwritten Wing with Hero as her assistant. The angel Rami is assisting Claire in the Arcane Wing. The relationship between Claire and Brevity is tense because Claire is doing the British stiff upper lip thing and avoiding Brevity, and Brevity does not want to hurt Claire’s feelings by telling Claire how she really feels after the events in book one, which led to hundreds of potential books in the Unwritten Wing being destroyed.

The plot of The Archive of the Forgotten revolves around a strange puddle of ink found in the Arcane Wing. One of the damsels disappears into it, and when Claire reaches her hand into the ink, the ink “infects” her and starts working its way up her arm until Brevity’s inspiration tattoo is transferred to Claire’s arm and stops the ink from moving further. Claire, Brevity, Hero and Rami quickly work out that the puddle of ink is from the unwritten books that were destroyed. But how can the ink from the destroyed books still exist? What exactly is the nature of the ink? What do they do with it? And how do they remove it from Claire’s arm before Brevity’s tattoo wears off? The appearance of the ink puddle fractures the relationship between Claire and Brevity even further as they have different ideas of what to do with the ink. It does not help that there is another muse in this book (who pretty much screams “not-trustworthy-at-all”) egging Brevity on.

I found myself more engaged by The Archive of the Forgotten than I was by The Library of the Unwritten. Firstly, this book answers questions that I had after reading the previous book, especially about the purpose of the Unwritten Wing and why it exists in Hell. Secondly, the characters are better developed in this book, especially Claire and Hero, and they show how complex and contradictory people (book characters, muses, angels) can be. And thirdly, Hackwith expands even further on the world she introduced in The Library of the Unwritten and takes the reader to other wings of the library (the Dust Wing is especially heartbreaking to read about).

The Archive of the Forgotten reads like a love letter to stories, books and the act of reading. I am very much looking forward to reading the final book in the trilogy, The God of Lost Words, when it comes out this November. Fingers crossed I enjoy it as much as I enjoyed reading this book!