Cinder's Rest is a library on a river island between two kingdoms. It has a classification system, a Chief Archivist who has seen things, a dragon in the deep archives, and a programme of highly trained fetch-and-carry dogs.

Pip is six months into his training. He is very good at carrying things. He is also, his handler privately suspects, the cleverest dog the programme has seen in twenty years — which is, it turns out, not entirely good news.

He has noticed an inefficiency. He has a plan. The library is quiet, and it is early, and nobody is watching.

But nobody is ever not watching.

A prequel story set in the world of the Elinor Greaves series — before the mysteries, before Elinor herself. All you need to know is that the library has dogs, and one of them has opinions about shelving, and a brilliant, eight-months-pregnant scholar named Lira Elmwood is about to walk through the door.

"A Library Dog's Guide to Proper Organisation"

by Rosalind Vale