*Spoilers ahead!*

Four strangers sitting at the same table in the Reading Room of the Boston Public Library strike up a conversation and become friends after a woman's blood curdling scream is heard throughout the library. After her body is discovered, the group investigates and finds out that one of their new friends may be a murderer.

This book was very fun to read! Odd thing to say about a murder mystery, but I did find it enjoyable. Mainly because it does what all great mysteries do. It allows the reader to play detective. To question everything the author has put before them, and to arrive at their own conclusions. "The Woman in the Library" is an engaging and entertaining page turner. It's structured well, the plot flows and I can see it being a very good choice for a book club. Author Sulari Gentill has created an interesting group of characters, giving them all their own moments to shine. I especially like the characters Whit and Marigold. They had such big personalities, yet they didn't feel over the top or cliched.

As much as I enjoyed this book, there were a few things I wasn't a fan of. The first was the choice to have the subplot of the emails between Hannah and Leo. At first, it was so jarring to have every chapter be interrupted; it seemed to ruin the flow. For the first few chapters I actually skipped over the emails for that reason. I am glad I went back though because I would've missed something important going on. I wish we could've seen Hannah's emails back to Leo. I feel like we weren't able to connect with her, or him much for that matter. Him being a killer himself felt like it was abruptly brought up, forgotten for a bit and then wrapped up at the end quite quickly. Because I wasn't able to really connect with either Leo or Hannah, frankly, I asked myself why does this even matter? I would've much preferred if the subplot had been it's own novel, and given more time to develop.

Also, as much as this was a fun mystery, I think the execution of the investigation itself could've used a lot more work. I felt like the group didn't look into Caroline's murder enough. And they started looking into it WAY too late. That should've been their first move. I also wish they had actual hard evidence of any of the theories they brought up throughout the story. I feel like all the information they got was just hearsay from other people, and any time someone would say something suspicious about someone, Freddie would immediately believe they were the killer, yet she had no actual tangible evidence. Speaking of Freddie, I wasn't quite sure why she was the one who was chosen to get the phone calls with the scream or the door pictures. It all felt a bit "lets haunt the pretty girl" cliche and the only way to keep her relevant in the story.

Overall, even with a few misses, I still think "The Woman in the Library" is a hit, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a fast, engaging locked room mystery in reverse to exercise their detective skills. Thank you Poisoned Pen Press and Net Galley for giving me an advanced copy.

This was a fun little book! I was instantly grabbed by the premise and loved the letter additions, especially as they were revealed to be more sinister. My only gripe would be that this lost a bit of steam in the last third. Too much emphasis on instant love and I’m still confused why Leo (the book Leo) was so damn pushy and creepy.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ooof. A very overwrought piece of meta fiction. The ultimate unraveling at the end, did unfold as planned, but reading through the novel to get there didn’t feel worth it to me.

I have mixed feelings about this one. I very much enjoyed at first the idea of a substory or a meta one, it really made it feel original and I was very excited to find out more about the story, but then kind of a third one felt a bit more and it didn’t quite land for me. Some parts felt very long and got me a little confused. Some parts got me really scared! And I enjoyed that.

This is not a bad book and I think this is a perfect book for a book club.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Poison Pen Press for this ARC.

I loved the idea for this book, unfortunately it just did do it for me. The whole story within a story with a story got confusing and there were a lot of moments where I wasn’t sure exactly where the characters were at. I also feel like adding the pandemic/everything else that was happening in 2020/2021 felt off. I’ve read a few books that added covid perfectly, but this one just wasn’t it. It’s such a beautiful cover, and I know lots of people have loved it, it just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for the copy!

i really wanted to like this book and at times i thought i would. it had a interesting premise but it lost me pretty quickly when i realized there wasn't as much of a mystery and more of bored people looking to create problems where they where not involved. i liked the writing at times but in other moments it felt very forced and amateurish. the ending was very watered down and gave me nothing i had been hoping for.

The Woman in the Library was an original thriller with twists and turns that kept me captivated until the last page.

I received a complimentary digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I usually start with the parts I liked about this book. And I think the best part of this book is definitely its hook. From the title to the first sentence, the book asks for you to pick it up. The side characters were entertaining and I felt engaged with them as a reader. The mystery itself was good, which I suppose is really all you need in a mystery/thriller. And even the protagonist could be well-written at times. All in all this book in a normal circumstance I would give 3-3.5 stars, A solid mystery with decent characters.

However, I did not enjoy the story within a story aspect of this book. The random emails every few paragraphs broke whatever tension/suspense the plot managed to have. Just when the story would pick up, it would immediately be disrupted by these emails of the "author"/protagonist. It felt very rough and patchy, especially for a book of this genre. Because I could never get truly into the story, I found myself skimming through it about halfway through just to see what happened. .

When a woman’s scream pierces through the quiet of the reading room in the Boston Public Library, four strangers are suddenly drawn to each other. Who screamed? Are they ok? These are the questions these strangers have and these are the questions that start an unusual friendship between them. Freddie (Winnifred) and Cain are both writers while Whit and Marigold are both students. When the woman’s body is found in the library, these four try to put together the puzzle pieces while getting to know the truth about one another. Simultaneously, another story is unfolding in letters written back and forth to the author from an strange fan who has a dangerous side.

This plot was so original and intriguing, a story in a story. I loved the strange beginnings of this unusual friendship. There were lots of red herrings and I did not see the ending in either plot lines coming. It’s so hard to even try and explain the 2 plot lines going on but this is will be a great summer read. This book has it all!
Romance ✔️
Mystery ✔️
Murder ✔️
Friendship✔️
And much more!

3.5 stars rounded down. I loved the premise of this book, a murder in a library involving writers - it had so much potential - but I didn't love the execution! The main plot was really interesting, however, I found the chapters felt very disconnected because of the e-mails with Leo (the sub-plot). His part was only semi-interesting in the middle and again at the end, but overall it took away from the book instead of adding to it. I did really enjoy the four main characters and found them all interesting and was suspicious of them all at various points.

Thanks to NetGalley & Poisoned Pen Press for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review

Short book, big disappointment. I wanted to love it; the premise was so interesting and I love a good “who done it” kind of book. Unfortunately, the story was confusing and sometimes it didn’t make any sense – I’m no strange to suspension of disbelief (major fantasy reader here) but this was a bit too much for my taste.

The characters were very one-dimensional, they had no depth or charisma – I didn’t care about any of them and this shouldn’t happen when there’s a murder on the loose. Starting with Freddie, she was so naïve for a 27 year old, and she made very questionable decisions (with a ridiculous reason behind it – keeping it spoiler free). Marigold was just annoying and needy, Whit was supposed to be the laid back cool guy but for me he came across as a teenager who wanted to piss off his parents, and then there was Cain. I liked what the author did with his name, very clever in my opinion, and he was the most interesting one by far, but still not very wholesome.

About the plot, it started strong but it didn’t hold up. Although I have enjoyed the letters from Leo and how everything escalated from just a “beta reader” to what the author developed (again, trying to not spoil anything), nothing else held my attention and the ending was a downer.

Hopefully I’ll have better luck with this author in the future.

This book is a lot. The author employs a story within a story structure but I am not sure it is always completely successful - the link between the two pieces seems tenuous at best. The main plot is solid. The characterization feels a little cliched. The pace is off as the first half of the book tends to drag. And the tone fluctuates wildly - it feels like a cozy thru most but for jarring sequences of disturbing and violent imagery. I think mainstream readers will enjoy this; voracious readers will readily identify its flaws.

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill
Thank you to Poinsoned Pen Press and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on June 7th, 2022.
Writing: 4/5 Plot: 5/5 Characters: 4/5

A three-layer nested story merging a murder mystery, the evolution of friendships, and some fascinating insight into a writer’s process.

Australian Hannah Tigon is a writer, and in a semi-epistolary shell to the novel, she writes a chapter which is followed by detailed feedback and comments from an e-colleague living in Boston where her story is set. These comments get stranger and stranger as the book evolves. In the story itself, Winifred Kincaid (Freddie) is also a writer — trying to get some work done in the Boston Library when a bloodcurdling scream is heard. She — and the three others nearby — form a friendship after the scream as they try to figure out what happened. In the third layer of the story, she bases her characters on these three new friends.

Twisted. Engaging. Quite well written in the spare, thoughtful style that I like. The story is told from Freddie’s first person perspective and her internal dialog is clever, colorful and full of insight into a writer’s thoughts. I found it interesting that she presented some un-PC perspectives such as a white author bemoaning the fact that he never got to benefit from white privilege (see quote) and took an interesting perspective on race — never telling us the race of the characters while simultaneously being harangued for same by the man sending her feedback.

A few interesting quotes:

“I open my mouth to explain, to assure him that I’m a writer, not a leering harasser, but of course this is the reading room, and one does not conduct a defense while people are trying to read. I do attempt to let him know I’m just interested in him as the physical catalyst for a character I’m creating, but that’s too complex to convey in mime.”

“But they all smile while they talk — that’s the difference I think, that’s what makes it American. Australians don’t seem to be able to smile and talk at the same time — unless they’re lying, of course.”

“I write her terror gently, allowing what is unsaid to carry the narrative, aware that overt emotion could well move the story into melodrama.”

“The reality is, I suppose, that I am a straight white man with no diversity disadvantage to offer as a salve for the fashionable collective guilt that rules publishing. I understand that popular correctness demands that men like me be denied to compensate for all the years in which we were given too much. I just wish I’d had a chance to enjoy a little of that privilege before it became a liability.”

“I’m not sure if they have more information or if it is simply an inevitable evolution of sensationalism.”

“Cain smiles at me, and the fact that he’s handsome is again very salient.”

“New, but already beloved, wrapped in the excited crush of friendship’s beginning, untarnished by the annoyances, disappointments, and minor betrayals which come with the passing of time.”

The Woman in the Library has a really cool concept, which will be attractive to writers especially: a writer is working on a novel about a writer working on a novel, all while maintaining correspondence about her novel with another writer. While well-executed, it was not so well executed as to avoid being boring and weirdly bloated. Not enough attention is given to interesting parts, and too much attention is given to Freddie's book about the friends she meets in the library. The characters and setting seem very one-dimensional, and the main mystery is not that intriguing. The element of Hannah's work being critiqued in real-time by her pen pal was very entertaining and unique.

3.5/5

This book is basically a story written within a story. There's an author, Hannah, and her beta reader with whom she keeps a correspondence through emails. She sends him each chapter of the book she is currently writing. The book? It's The Woman in the Library!
I found this way of storytelling very intriguing and well-done. It was actually what made me continue the book even though it took a while for the mystery to grip me. I liked how it turned out in the end, and the reading experience was great.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Woman in the Library is a bit unexpected in the fact that it’s a book about a book … within a book. Mystery lovers will be pulled in immediately when a scream shatters the quiet in the Boston Public Library reading room. While security guards investigate, four strangers all seated together strike up a conversation - and a friendship …and one of them is a murderer.

Mystery writer Hannah Tigone is writing this book from Australia, unable to travel to Boston for research due to Covid restrictions. She sends her chapters to Leo Johnson, a beta reader in the city, for help with locations and lingo. Each chapter of Hannah’s book ends with correspondence from Leo who is becoming increasingly invested in the mystery - and Hannah herself.

While many aspects of the story make it clever, there is must about both story lines that felt ridiculous/contrived. I never cared about any of the characters, their instant friendship felt awkward and forced, and did no one have a job? They literally all meet in the library one day and then spend every day afterward meeting up to discuss the strange events that have brought them together. All that said, I kept right on reading to see where this was going and was underwhelmed overall.

Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. The Woman in the Library is scheduled for release on June 7, 2022.

A murder thriller in the Boston Public Library grabbed my attention! It was little tough getting started into the book. The whole ‘a story within a story within a story’ concept was complex. It took me a bit to get it, having to re-read the beginning chapters again. Each chapter had another author providing feedback, I didn’t see those to be beneficial to be included in the book. The book was unpredictable, exciting once it picked up mid-way. I do recommend if you enjoy a thought provoking mystery thriller! Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

The concept of this was intriguing, and the plot was interesting enough, but unfortunately I really couldn't get into this book. I guessed the murdered within the first scene, and I found the writing to be a bit rudimentary.

The email exchanges betweent the main character and her follower, Leo, were very well done. It was interesting that Sulari Gentill used the fan's real name as a character in the story line. I know authors do that now and it was nice to see that happen in a novel. The story was engaging and quite the page turner.

Un giallo medio, che scorre senza appassionare particolarmente, e che ha la sua parte migliore nel giallo sotterraneo che si dispiega nelle email di un fan sempre più agguerrito dell'autrice. I personaggi del romanzo sono troppo stereotipati, e nonostante il continuo citare luoghi e locali (ma non mangiano mai a casa, questi?) non ho nemmeno sentito l'atmosfera di Boston, se non per l'inverno gelido.
Peccato, perché mi piace molto l'idea del romanzo nel romanzo (non nuova, ma sempre d'appeal per me, come un buon mistero della camera chiusa) e la premessa dei quattro sconosciuti che stringono amicizia legati da un mistero è molto carina.