Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

As famously quoted in the movie Jerry Maguire, “You had me at …” In this case, “You had me at Croatian Island Library.”

I haven’t been to Croatia but it is at the top of my travel bucket list! Add to that my love of being on the water and my love of libraries, and, I mean, how could I not want to read this book asap?

Thank you to NetGalley, One More Chapter, and author Eva Glyn for the advanced reading copy of The Croatian Island Library (Bookish Escapes #3), just published on January 16, 2026. I must admit, I haven’t read books 1 and 2 of this series, nor anything else by Eva Glyn, so this was a new “adventure” for me.

I grew up in southeast Louisiana, in a small town called Port Sulphur. My town was sandwiched between the Mississippi River and the bayous that lead out to the Gulf of Mexico. Fishing is one of the main industries of my hometown, in fact my parish (not county like in the rest of the country) proudly bears the nickname, “Sportsman’s Paradise.”

My area of Louisiana, Plaquemines Parish, is home to many immigrants from the former Yugoslavia and the surrounding area of southeastern/central Europe. They are fishermen who supply restaurants and grocery stores with the best shrimp, fish, blue crabs, and oysters this country can produce. Growing up I was lucky enough to be invited by friends on day trips during summer break and on weekends to ride along on an oyster boat or a boat trawling for shrimp. This is where my love of being on the water first began.

One of my mom’s closest friends when I was growing up was a lovely woman named Mrs. Helen. Mrs. Helen and her husband were originally from Croatia. They had three children and their children lined up almost perfectly with the three children in my family. So the two first borns were Nick and me. We were close friends all through elementary school and most of high school. When we were in high school his family moved and we lost touch. Years ago, for one of our high school reunions, my husband and I flew to Louisiana to attend it and after looking around the big ballroom to find familiar faces I see a big smile coming my way!

I hadn’t seen Nick since I don’t know when! So lovely to run into him again! We have since seen each other at a subsequent reunion where we got to share a meal with our spouses and chat, all four of us!

Nick once posted a photo on social media with a caption that took my breath away. Now you can see why Croatia is high on my travel wish list!

Back to the book! I enjoyed this book, although I think the beginning is somewhat weaker than the middle and the end. As much as I appreciate the author’s dedication to character development of the three main characters Ana, Lloyd, and Natalie, the beginning section of the book is just page after page of the three of them being down on themselves. At or around the 15% mark (I was reading the ARC on my Kindle) the story really picked up for me, and I felt that it finished really strong. I liked the general direction that each of the main characters was heading and I felt that the primary reason why they were so down at the start of the book was on its way to being resolved.

My most favorite part of this book was the world building that Eva Glyn did to make Croatia come alive as she described the sky, the water, the islands, the warm, friendly people, and everything else she covered in this lovely book. I now have a list of places I want to visit when (not if) I finally get to Croatia, where I will hopefully get to visit my dear friend Nick at his family’s home there!

Goodreads has limited reviews of this delightful book since it is just recently published, but it currently has 65 ratings, 55 reviews, giving The Croatian Island Library an average of 4.5 stars. Pick up a copy of this book and sail away on Ana’s catamaran, and hopefully you will enjoy this delightful adventure!