I finally got teller of secrets open, I bought both books, one of my main chars then levelled, and the books have not restocked.

is this working as intended?

Yes.

thanks, so you merely get 2 books the entire game?

From her, yes. There is another of each book...

The confusion here might be, that prior to about 1.0.166, the books respawned a every level up and many game guides contain that tip. That has been fixed so this is no longer the case.

thanks

As an aside, the game must have been monumentally easy before that was patched. I am playing hard now and I haven't had too much trouble.

Not really. I used the feature, but the result was absolutely neglectable. E.g. on a glass canon mage a boost from 22 to 24 action points per turn. Or one more leadership level for another character allowing to exchange an armour 10 helmet against an armour 16. And more of that kind of stuff.

Simply insignificant, the battle difficulty is determined by fundamental mechanics and the player ability to focus his builds.

Regards,
Thorsten

The books still respawn each level for me. I started a new game with the companion patch.

Confirmed.

Regards,
Thorsten

Hmm, sounds like the "bug" was been unfixed then. Or maybe Larian decided it was not a bug afterall.