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Hana Babic is a quiet, middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who wants nothing more than to be left alone. But when a detective arrives with the news that her best friend has been murdered, Hana knows that something evil has come for her, a dark remnant of the past she and her friend had shared.
Thirty years before, Hana was someone else: Nura Divjak, a teenager growing up in the mountains of war-torn Bosnia—until Serbian soldiers arrived to slaughter her entire family before her eyes. The events of that day thrust Nura into the war, leading her to join a band of militia fighters, where she became not only a fierce warrior but a legend—the deadly Night Mora. But a shattering final act forced Nura to flee to the United States with a bounty on her head.
Now, someone is hunting Hana, and her friend has paid the price, leaving her eight-year-old grandson in Hana's care. To protect the child without revealing her secret, Hana must again become the Night Mora—and hope she can find the killer before the past comes for them, too.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
February 18, 2025 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781668646717
- File size: 236342 KB
- Duration: 08:12:22
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from November 1, 2024
Library patrons know her as "The Sweater Lady." To Serbians, she's "The Night Mora." Her friends call her Hana Babic. But when this quiet librarian fled Bosnia 30 years ago, she was Nura Divjak, a woman running from war and hiding a deadly secret. Now living a mundane life in Minnesota, Hana thinks her past is behind her until her best friend is murdered, and a detective comes looking for answers. Can Hana find the killer and keep her secret? No typical whodunit, this is an intense and emotional story about grief, loss, and the horrors of war. Hana is a woman who, we learn, had to grow up too fast and whose family experienced horrific violence from those they considered friends. Eskens (Saving Emma, 2023) doesn't hold back in his descriptions of the Bosnian War and the brutality it wrought. Hana is a compelling character readers can't help but root for, even if they disagree with her actions. The Quiet Librarian will make readers contemplate their definition of justice and the decisions humans make when trapped in terrible situations. This book is perfect for fans of intense, bleak mysteries and those who like fiction featuring real-life history.COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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January 6, 2025
This uneven dual timeline thriller from Eskens (Saving Emma) toggles between present day Minnesota and the war in Bosnia. In early 1990s Yugoslavia, Nura Divjak lives with her Muslim parents and younger brother in a farmhouse near Tuzla (in what is now Bosnia). When her family is murdered by Serbian soldiers, Nura joins the Bosnian army and falls in love with a fellow soldier named Adem. During an ambush, Nura is captured and meets a woman named Amina Junuzović in prison. After Adem dies in battle, Amina helps Nura escape, and together, the pair flee to the United States, where Amina gives birth to Sara, the daughter of a Serb who raped her, and Nura reinvents herself as a meek librarian named Hana. Thirty years later, when Amina is thrown off her balcony, “Hana” becomes Nura once again, determined to hunt down the killer before he comes after Dylan, Amina’s grandson. Nura first teams up with a handsome detective, then takes justice into her own hands, with dramatic results. Eskens strains to connect his past and present timelines, with a weak romance plot and a limp through line about Nura’s affinity for building traps—first for hunting food, then for hunting her adversaries—failing to raise the cumbersome present-day sections to the level of the fast-paced, well-researched historical chapters. It’s a mixed bag. Agent: Amy Cloughley, Kimberly Cameron & Assoc. -
Narrator Ilvana Muratovic's Bosnian heritage adds power to Eskens's extraordinary historical novel of the 1990s War in Bosnia and its repercussions. Muratovic gives Hana Babic, a Bosnian now living in Minnesota, a subtle accent. It soon becomes clear that Hana's secret past, buried for the last 30 years, threatens to resurface and upend her quiet life. As the story flashes back to Bosnia in the 1990s, Muratovic's accent becomes more pronounced. That part of the story involves Nura Divjak, a 15-year-old girl whose life was upended when war came to her family farm in the mountains of Bosnia. The intertwining of these tales of family, war, revenge, and redemption has powerful lessons we can learn from today. N.E.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine -
January 31, 2025
The latest from bestselling Eskens (Saving Emma) features middle-aged librarian Hana Babic. She's living a quiet life in Minnesota when she learns that her best friend has been murdered--and she may be next--as someone who knows the secret of her militia fighter past in Bosnia pursues her. Prepub Alert.
Copyright 2024 Library Journal
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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