I recently discovered Gary Val Tenuta during a quest to fulfill yet another task for the Summer 2015 Challenge for Goodreads Seasonal Challenge Group. For such a short novella, The Good Librarian is book candy—an addictive diversion from everyday life. It is not your usual horror novel. For starters, I could read The Good Librarian at night unlike novels by Stephen King. Then there is the quirky darkness that pervades Tenuta’s writing. Cute is the wrong word to describe The Good Librarian. I’ll say lovable fiction.

 A religious zealot of a librarian opens a private library with books she believes are worthy to be read. All others she acquires are burned in the library’s basement. Remember Footloose? Hidden away in the basement of the  Library also is a book that the librarian believes is the result of the devil’s handiwork, having glimpsed the inside of the book as a child. The book, along with its companion in the possession of a huntress, holds secrets from the Garden of Eden. The librarian wishes only for the book to be destroyed while the huntress seeks to reunite the books.