The Collector of Burned Books by Roseanna M. White

The Collector of Burned Books
by Roseanna M. White

ISBN-13: 9798400501739
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Tyndale Fiction
Released: July 15, 2025

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Paris, 1940. Ever since the Nazi Party began burning books, German writers exiled for their opinions or heritage have been taking up residence in Paris. There they opened a library meant to celebrate the freedom of ideas and gathered every book on the banned list and even made incognito versions of the forbidden books to smuggle back into Germany.

For the last six years, Corinne Bastien has been reading those books and making that library a second home. But when the German army takes possession of Paris, she loses access to the library and all the secrets she’d hidden there. Secrets the Allies will need.

Christian Bauer may be German, but he never wanted anything to do with the Nazi Party—he is a professor, one who’s done his best to protect his family as well as the books that were a threat to Nazi ideals. But when Goebbels sends him to Paris to handle the “relocation” of France’s libraries, he’s forced into an army uniform and given a rank he doesn’t want. In Paris, he tries to protect whoever and whatever he can from the madness of the Party and preserve the ideas that Germans will need again when that madness is over.


My Review:
The Collector of Burned Books is a romance set in 1940 in Paris. Unfortunately, this story just didn't work for me as it became increasingly unrealistic. Chris started off alright, walking a fine line of not drawing the attention of the Nazis watching him but also trying to preserve books and their authors. He knew what the Nazis were like from personal experience. Yet when a Nazi accused him of being a traitor, Chris seemed to genuinely believe that he wasn't really in danger. He acted like he could just reason with fervent Nazis and they'd see the error of their ways.

Corinne seemed out of touch with reality from the start. She wanted to do something to help with the war effort. She wrote codes in books, sent them to her students who had returned home, and they would return coded books with war-related information to pass on to the Allies. Very little of the story was about this as mainly it's an excuse for why she stayed in Paris. Her spy boss knew that she's very opinionated, outspoken, and impulsive, yet he let her take this role. She intended to use banned books to send the codes through the mail even knowing this would, at the very least, draw German attention to the books. Worse, she coded the books before needing them and stupidly put them back in a library that only held banned books....so of course the Nazis took it over and began sorting through the books.

Being a sloppy spy wasn't enough. Corinne insisted on telling Germans whose job was to censor speech just how wrong censorship was. She's warned that a dangerous, zealous Nazi officer was interested in her, and she still told him publicly how wrong he was--and then didn't believe she was in any danger from him. Her experienced spy boss also didn't seem to think she was in danger. It just didn't make sense.

Chris and Corinne were Catholics and occasionally did Catholic rituals. Their faith was why they valued human life. There were no sex scenes or bad language.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.