Multi layered, fast pace dive into 2 parallel stories.

You had me at the scream. An “unlocked room” thriller kicked off by a very public scream with a varied and colorful cast of characters leads the reader through Boston on the trail of a murderer. Everything you think you know about the characters and narrative is flipped by the plot device of a story within a story. While an interesting concept, it detracted a bit from the flow for me. Nonetheless, I found myself reading at every opportunity to squeeze a few pages in to figure out whodunnit. I can enthusiastically recommend this book.

This was really great. The storytelling structure of this book is one I haven’t seen before and I enjoyed very much. It’s basically a book inside of a letter inside of a book, with the reader getting to see the novel and the emails from the beta reader (a fictional one). It also felt a little bit like a twist on a closed door mystery— the murder happens with all of our suspects basically staring each other in the face.

It took me a couple chapters to be hooked, but once I got the hang of the structure I wasn’t so worried about the pacing. And the book really hit its stride about a third of the way through.

Review of Advance Reader’s Edition eBook

The reading room of the Boston Public Library becomes the focal point for four people sitting at the same table in the ornate room. Winifred Kincaid, recipient of a Marriot Scholarship, has come to Boston from Australia. She is at the library to work on her manuscript.

The woman seated beside her, arms covered with tattoos, reads a book by Freud. The young man sitting across the table wears a Harvard Law sweatshirt. Next to him sits a man working on his laptop. Freddie wonders about each of them as she considers the possibility of making each of them characters in her story.

And then a terrifying scream interrupts the quiet.

The four head for the Map Room, the closest place to get coffee. As the four ponder the reason for the blood-curdling scream, Marigold Anastas, Whit Metters, Cain MacLeod, and Freddie strike up a friendship. Soon they learn of the murder of a woman, Caroline Palfrey, in the Chavannes Gallery.

As the newly-formed group of friends seeks answers to the murder, they will find danger awaits around every turn. Soon they will wonder if one of the four of them could be the murderer.

=========

This book has an interesting format. Australian writer Hannah Tigone converses with a colleague, Leo Johnson, in Boston about the novel she is writing. She sends him a completed chapter; he offers comments, provides appropriate facts, and does what he can to support her writing. The narrative, then, becomes a chapter of Hannah’s work, followed by Leo’s comments.

The plot twists and turns as readers eventually realize the story about Freddie, Marigold, Whit, and Cain is Hannah’s manuscript. The story-within-a-story keeps the pages turning as readers try to determine the identity of the murderer in the library.

As the unfolding narrative reveals Leo’s replies to Hannah’s chapters, readers realize the comments Leo makes have become increasingly critical as if he is seeking to change Hannah’s story. It definitely adds a strong creepy factor to the telling of the tale.

The characters are well-drawn and believable; the twisty story complex and unpredictable. Guaranteed to entertain as it cleverly highlights the struggles of a writer, the evolving story is complex, creepy, and smart.

One caveat . . . the author’s continual propensity to use exclamatory phrases that include the name of Jesus in a disrespectful manner becomes quite off-putting and is the sole reason for lowering the rating for the book.

Recommended.

I received a free copy of this eBook from Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley
#TheWomanintheLibrary #NetGalley

Absolutely fantastic. I have not read any books by this author before but love this genre and was not disappointed. The story is written in a really unique way which allows more than one plot to unravel at once and had me hooked from very early on. It starts Dear Hannah, a letter from an American fan to a famous Australian author - Hannah Tigone , the letters continue throughout the book offering advice and tips. At first this appears to be quite helpful as the book is being written during the pandemic, so no research trips allowed, therefore, having this insight of Boston would obviously be of great help. But, as the book progresses you begin to suspect that maybe Leo (who is writing these letters) is not quite what he appears to be.
The story follows Winifred (Freddie) a young author writing her first novel in Boston. One afternoon she is writing in the Boston Public Library when there is a scream. She is sat on a table with three others and they start to chat about the scream , wondering who it could be. They soon learn that the scream came from a young woman who is found dead by a member of the library cleaning staff later the same day.
The team of four are now curious as to who murdered this woman and why. As the plot twists and turns I suspect just about everyone ! There are lots of secrets uncovered and everyone seems to have a motive at some point so the true identity of the murderer is only revealed at the very end - just how a cosy murder plot should be. Brilliant.

ARC releasing 6/7/22. The outer story is Hannah receiving feedback on the inner story which are 4 strangers who become friends to solve a murder and secrets are exposed. This was boring and confusing. The characters all fell in love within a day and the outer story made less sense than the inner story which I didn’t think was even possible.

This is a smartly written, creatively plotted story, with misdirection and plenty of tension. The Woman in the Library captivated me from the beginning when the story opened in the Boston Public Library. Four strangers happen to be sitting next to each other when a Woman screams. It is this moment that is the catalyst for the story and their connection to each other. However, This is only one of the layers of the story. We learn that Hannah Tigone, a successful Australian a thriller writer, is writing the story of the four strangers. The creative way the two stories are connected was expertly done and made the story more intense at times. The story of the four strangers in richly written with detailed characters, twists and action, making it very fast paced. We learn little of the author, Hannah, however and yet her story is equally tense. The book provided a satisfying ending and I definitely didn’t see it coming.

Thank you Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the arc and the opportunity to review.

Pick this up if you're in the mood for a page-turner.

Best-selling Australian author Hannah receives letters from a fan, Leo, asking about what she's writing next and offering to be a beta-reader as her new work progresses, if she's interested.

Hannah apparently agrees since Leo lives in Boston where her next thriller is set, and we, as the readers are able to read her mystery-in-progress as Leo receives chapters from her: four young strangers become bonded after hearing a scream in the Boston Public Library and discovering that a woman was found dead in the library the next day. Can this newly formed Scooby gang figure out what happened?

Meanwhile, Leo's letters to Hannah contain commentary on her chapters, Boston, and his own novel.

As the book progresses, the fiction and the reality both become more intertwined and more sinister.

Very fun read.

Each of the characters has just enough idiosyncrasies and secrets to make them seem suspicious throughout, and the parallel stories add an extra layer both to the plot and to the reader's understanding of the writing and creative process.

Two thumbs up.

*language, sexual situations, violence

This was an unexpected murder mystery - that was not at all what I was expecting. Is that good or bad? I’m not really sure.

Synopsis:

The ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is quiet, until the tranquility is shattered by a woman's terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who'd happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning-it just happens that one is a murderer.

So, when I read this synopsis I expected a locked room type mystery, but it turned out to be that in reverse. It also has a book, inside a book, inside a book - and as someone who loves books about books, I was super intrigued.

The characters are likeable but suspicious, the setting is well described and the chapters were short, interesting and left on cliff hangers.

The one sided letters from Leo to Hannah - at first were exciting to read but as I got closer to the end I found them more frustrating to read, as I just wanted to know what was happening in the other story.

All in all - this book was a good whodunnit mystery, good characters and a well thought out plot.

Thank you so much to NetGallery and Poisoned Pen Press for the arc ebook!

The Woman in the Library is a cleverly written mystery/thriller/ suspense story that grabs your attention from the scream in the library to the final page.

This book has it all: it is a story within a story, a locked but yet not locked room mystery and a group of 4 friends who bond at the library after hearing the infamous scream.

Who is the murderer?

Its more than that as the story unfurls.

There are twists and turns in the cleverly plotted book that will keep the pages turning and the lights on.

I don't want to give anything away so I will just say make sure you get your copy of The Women in the Library and put it at the top of your TBR pile.

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for a captivating read.

2.5/5
Unfortunately this book did not work for me. I was not a fan of the metacommentary the author included throughout the novel. Points were often overexplained, as if the author thought the readers could not figure out what she wanted us to understand.
The relationships in the book seemed very forced – I could not understand why the group’s friendship formed or why they continued to hang out after the initial point of contact.
The ending of the book was very rushed and because of this I felt really unsatisfied by the way things ended.

I did enjoy the unique way the story was written. The book is written as a story within a story – Hannah Tigone is sending her manuscript through email to a fan and he is giving her insight and notes on the writing. The manuscript is the chapters of the book that we are reading, and his emails are listed at the end of each chapter. I’ve never read a book like this, and I thought it was a unique and really interesting concept!

Thank you to NetGalley, Poisoned Pen Press, and Sulari Gentill for the eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Woman in the library was such a great read!

The premise of this story is an author corresponding with someone who reads her chapters as she sends them, and critiques or gives details of the places the author could use within each to make it seem more realistic.

The basis of the authors novel is a woman in the library trying to write a book and she’s noting the characteristics of those around her when they all hear someone scream. This begins a strange and fascinating friendship between the four of them.

As you get deeper into the book it becomes much more a thriller, suspense, mystery story and is very interesting to read. The details of the story and the email correspondence between her critique/friend and others gives this book so much depth.

I definitely think if you enjoy mystery thrillers then you should check this book out!

It was a really good read

‘And so we go to the Map Room to found a friendship, and I have my first coffee with a killer.’

Wow, I absolutely devoured this book! The narrative is split into two parts. Each chapter is the latest part of the mystery of the woman in the library written by a popular Australian author, Hannah Tigone. Four students find themselves in the library’s reading room when they hear a scream, after the body is found Winifred realises that one of them must be the killer. At the end of each chapter there’s a letter from Leo, an American fan of Hannah Tigone who writes to her to give her notes as she finishes each section.

There was an underlying tension throughout the whole book, not only are you trying to work out what happened to the woman in the library but Leo’s letters become increasingly odd. I really liked how we flipped from Hannah’s book to her correspondence with Leo, it felt exciting and kept me wanting to read on. Hannah’s book was interesting enough in itself, I really appreciated the dark academia vibes that reminded me of ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt. The pacing of the book felt right, the revelations came at the right time to keep it moving. The writing style was great, it was detailed and descriptive without slowing the pace down too much.
This just felt different to a lot of mystery thrillers I’ve read recently. I was genuinely excited to see how it would be resolved and it could have plausibly been any of the four students. This was a joy to read and I look forward to picking up more from this author!

✨Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an eARC of this book! ✨

I would like to thank Poisoned pen press and Netgalley for giving me this arc in exchange for an honest review.
This story has one of the most interesting formats I've ever read. Initially this seems to be about an Australian writer in Boston who is in the reading room with four strangers in a library when they hear a scream. The next morning a dead body is found but then we find out that this is actually a story being written by an author named Hannah and she's sharing drafts of her story with a fellow writer named Leo. As the mystery in the drafts of the novel sent to Leo are being unfolded we learn that there is something quite sinister happening with the writer Leo. Overall I thought that the story was good and tye mystery in both stories were interesting enough

A multi-layered mystery that’s consistently entertaining! There are four people communed in the Boston Public Library’s reading room bonded by a blood-curdling scream that’s actually a book within a book framed by a fan’s letters to the author. Lots of secrets that are revealed timely to ensure perfect pacing. Gentill’s novel is a bit unconventional, which I found delightful and refreshingly fun.

I graciously received an advance copy from NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press in exchange for an honest review.

A story within a story about a story? Yes please! This type of thing can be confusing but it actually worked for this one and I couldn’t wait to find out what happened in all of them. I wasn’t sure when I started but it hooked me quickly and I enjoyed it all the way to the end. Thanks to net Galley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I devoured this book.
This was such an interesting and unique read, you really have yo go at it from a different perspective.
After the first chapter you understand what is happening a bit better and it was genuinely difficult to put down.

DNF - I didn't like the writing style for this, at all. The manuscript reads as being satirical & perhaps that was the point but I struggled immensely to reach the 5% mark of this book as I clocked Leo as an antagonist from his one-way letter writing, bizarre obsession with Hannah, whom we don't hear from, & his overall demeanour in a single letter--this does not bode as very promising for an entire novel in which his participation as a villain of sorts is meant to be revealed much later in the book.
The writing style as a whole very enormously disjointed & dull. It did not request me to care about anyone. Hannah herself is a shadow figure whom I am to get to know through the obsessive writings of a person who can't properly construct an email to save their life.
Every character in the manuscript read as a caricature with no depth or personality whatsoever. Everything felt tiresome & this was before the 5% mark which resulted in me making the decision to not pursue my reading. Had another author actually written the emails or been the person to write the manuscript we might see the difference in tonality that Gentill was attempting to adopt. I am not trying to say that this is something that is easily done but, it can be aided by the influence of another - someone whose tone you don't have to adopt yourself but who can write at their leisure, as usual.

HERE it is, the book I have been waiting for, my first 5-star read of the year. After a couple of middling 3-star rom-coms (and I love rom-coms), I found The Woman in the Library.

Or, perhaps, like our protagonist Freddie's muse, it found me. This novel is Agatha Christie with a nod to Shakespeare's book within a book plot device and it immediately draws the reader in.

So, too, were our four main suspects drawn to one another by a fateful scream at the Boston Public Library. Freddie, newly arrived from Australia on a writing scholarship, quickly takes to Cain, Whit and Marigold. She believes them all to be strangers, but more ties the others together than a woman's scream. When it's discovered that a body of a young woman was found at the library, the connections grow - and so does the chance that one, or all, of them are in danger.

The reader soon discovers that the characters in this book belong to mystery writer Hannah Tigone, who is sending chapters to a fan, Leo. As Leo's communication becomes more and more worrisome, we start to wonder about Hannah's safety as well.

The focus of the novel remains mostly on Freddie as she falls in love with one of the group and tries to clear that person of murder. There is some suspension of disbelief here - would a mystery writer get herself so involved in a real-life mystery?

Anything for the story.

Very well written. It took me a little while to catch on it was 2 mysteries for the price of one.

The letters threw me for a loop at first. The second letter made it clear it was a fellow writer, with feedback about a manuscript, Freddie’s story. The correspondance was done masterfully, becoming darker and darker, talking about the pandemic, racism (either the state of things or Leo’s feelings) and (sometimes gruesome) research.

As for the manuscript mystery, everyone becomes a suspect, except Freddie. As a reader, it was interesting to see how the first few letters from Leo played into who I thought had done it, since perhaps he knew where Hannah, the writer, was going with her story. And then chapter 18 happens and everything becomes even more muddled… it’s so well done!

My only question is… what is the point of Freddie’s neighbour Leo? He shows up randomly… but who is he really and why is he at the hospital?

There's so much I want to say about this book but I am going to try to keep this spoiler-free.

To begin with, I really enjoyed this. I had to put it down because life was intervening but it kept circulating in my mind and that was a very good thing. Told in two paths (one, the titular story being written by an author and the second, the correspondence of her beta reader reacting to said story with commentary and suggestions) and that made for an interesting read. It's like Inception with Gentil writing a story about an author writing a story with the author's real-life playing out via the beta reader. It's such an interesting way to tell a story and I just loved it. Now I have to admit that I did feel at times that the story of The Woman In the Library felt like a tertiary story because so much else was happening to the characters that didn't seem too related to solving the murder. As that's what drew me in to read this, to begin with, I was a little disappointed at some points. But, this was always a very engaging read. The beta reader thread upped the level of "Wait... what?!" and then it was just a story that would not let go of my attention.

Finally, I stayed up one evening determined to finish because I couldn't stand not knowing how it would all end. It was completely worth it. It should also one said that there were so many questions brought up in the book that was worth thinking about. Whether an author should or shouldn't reference the Covid pandemic or not (I still don't know but I appreciate this is a difficult thing for authors at the moment. It made me think about what authors did during/past the Spanish Influenza.

Also, should authors state character race/ethnicity or just ignore it altogether? I enjoyed reading the perspectives and it's definitely one that has me thinking. As a biracial POC, I don't assume white characters unless told otherwise when I read but realize that others may. The discussion around not being explicit about it robs the character of complete characterization was an interesting one. It's an argument I've read about regarding Bridgerton and while I haven't watched it, I've seen tons of clips of it and can see the points of the various arguments. I loved seeing that here and having the opportunity to think about it in the context of this story. I have to admit that one of the possible clues the in-story author gives for a character flew completely over my head because I knew nothing about the location given about where the character was living. If it was indeed a clue it was an oblique one, at least to me which adds another layer to the discussion of declaring upfront.

Finally, the mystery solution was great and so well done, that I couldn't have asked for more. It was exciting to the last. I have to admit though my favourite character was Mrs.Weinbaum and I think she should have her own story because she must lead a damned interesting life and in turn makes the lives of her attorneys so exciting though perhaps they'd choose a different word.

So I recommend this. Highly. I have some of Gentill's classic mysteries in my TBR and will be getting to those sooner than later now. She knows how to tell a story. Read this if you get the chance.

Many thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for the Advance Reader's Copy.