Books from the Backlog | The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

Books from the Backlog is hosted by Carole @ Carole’s Random Life and features neglected books that’s been sitting on your TBR for a while.

I’ve got a lot of them so I’m not even sure where to start. But I ended choosing one that has been on my mind for a while, and that I keep wanting to go back to.

This week’s neglected book

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

“The body you are wearing used to be mine.”

So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her.

She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.

In her quest to uncover which member of the Chequy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined.

Filled with characters both fascinating and fantastical, The Rook is a richly inventive, suspenseful, and often wry thriller that marks an ambitious debut from a promising young writer.

– Goodreads

Why did I add this book to my bookshelf?

I’ve actually read this book before and I remember loving it and rating it five stars, but it’s only the first book in a series and I haven’t read the next books. I’d forgotten much of the details in this one so I wanted to reread it before getting to the next books. In fact, I had gotten all three books in the series in 2022 and meant to read them but it’s now December 2023, and I still haven’t read them! At this point, I’d be happy if I got to them anytime in 2024!

What are your thoughts? Have you read this book?  Would you recommend it?