This guest review comes from Lisa! A longtime romance aficionado and frequent commenter to SBTB, Lisa is a queer Latine critic with a sharp tongue and lots of opinions. She frequently reviews at All About Romance and Women Write About Comics, where she’s on staff, and you can catch her at @‌thatbouviergirl on Twitter. There, she shares good reviews, bracing industry opinions and thoughtful commentary when she’s not on her grind looking for the next good freelance job.

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The Librarian of a Lyon reminded me of being a young teenager writing shared-universe stories on Livejournal or message boards. The Lyon’s Den story series now spans over 100 novellas, each of them vaguely interconnected, but not in a way that will turn off new readers. To wit: I understood everything that happens in this charming novel, though I felt a little bit like an outsider to the world and its inhabitants. All that said, I can’t resist a reading wallflower hero even if I try, especially when he’s this steadfast.

Matthew, the Earl of Wingfield is having a bad 1816. Horrible storms have ruined his estate’s crops as he teeters under the financial weight of his father’s gambling debts. He’s summoned to London via the glue that holds the series together — Bessie Dove-Lyon, the owner of the titular Lyon’s Den, a gambling hell where she’s the proprietress, and holder of one of his father’s debts. Bessie’s matchmaking services are well-known, and Matthew is spared her typical game of chance she subjects all of her proteges to.

Bessie matches Matthew with a bluestocking named Catherine Kingston. She’s the daughter of a publisher. Her lifelong plan was to take over Kingston Publishing, but then her best friend marries her father, leaving the possibility of a male heir taking the business over. She’s brokenhearted that her future is gone – and she decides to work for a bookshop to forge her own life. Bessie discovers her there and decides she and Matthew would be perfect for one another. But will the twosome agree?

This is a quick, fast-paced read and it’s fun, tender and sexy. You won’t be spending hours on it – it’s an incredibly quick read – but The Library of a Lyon is very book-focused and giddily romantic in the best of ways.

Matthew is just looking for a financial out and wants to be left alone with his books. Catherine wants to change the world with her own books, and be a spinster, but she really just wants to be left alone to read too. Clearly they’re perfect for one another.

And they were perfect for me, too. I love retiring, shy heroes. I love prickly, smart, tough heroines. I fear this was catnip for me, y’all. I could not resist it, not one inch. There’s library sex, a rich matchmaker, and a lovely romance that works in spite of our hero and heroine’s best instincts. I had a great time with this one and – though the Lyon’s Den backlist is a bit dense – it made me want to dive back in for more.