“The Woman in the Library,” by Sulari Gentill, Poisoned Pen Press, 288 pages, June 7, 2022.

Aspiring author Leo Johnson, whose book has been rejected by publishers many times, is in the reading room at the Boston Public Library. He writes that he has been corresponding with Australian best-selling author, Hannah Tigone, for years.

He is a beta reader. Beta readers are non-professionals who read a manuscript prior to publishing. Hannah takes his emailed descriptions and incorporates them into her new novel, sending Johnson chapters as they are written. Leo enthusiastically offers comments, culture and location tips, crime-scene photos, plot suggestions, and other literary feedback.

The reading room is quiet, until a woman screams. Security guards instruct everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified. Four strangers, who'd happened to sit at the same table, start talking. They are Cain McLeod, Winifred Kincaid, Marigold Anastas and Whit Meters.

The security guards tell them they may leave and they go for coffee. The cleaning people later find the body of the woman, in the library gallery room. The woman was Caroline Palfrey. She worked for a local tabloid.

Winifred is writing a novel. She tells us upfront that one of these people is a murderer. The chapters end with Leo’s emails to Hannah, which become more unhinged over time.
But which tale is the novel and which is reality? As the book goes on, both stories start to unravel.

Unfortunately, I found the whole thing to be convoluted and slow-paced. I didn’t care for the characters. The dialogue doesn’t sound real and Leo's going off the rails was easy to predict early on. The ending fizzles out.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

A terrifying scream is the catalyst for a sudden allyship between Freddie, an Australian writer, and 3 strangers at the Boston Public Library. The group dives headfirst into trying to solve the mystery as other dangerous attacks start to occur. But how well do they really know each other? And is there another party at play here?!

I love a good whondunnit thriller. I don't want to give anything away but this story has a very interesting format- it's told in alternating related letters and chapters which peel away clues with every new entry. The premise is very unique and engaging- it had an Inception like quality- and set my expectations very high for the rest of the novel...

Here is what I liked:
- This book was layered! There were so many twists and turns throughout the book, and midway you can see just how clever this book/the writer is...
- The characters were so vivid, charming and quirky. It wasn't hard to see why they were caught up in each other's magnetic pull

Here is what I disliked:
- Unfortunately this book just completely lost me at the end. The ending seemed rushed and implausible, and my pet peeve is a messy ending after I have invested so much in a book
- Also, and this is a general note to authors writing about a younger generation, the speech did not sound like college-aged students. It was a little reminiscent of Dawson's Creek where every teen monologued like they were going through a midlife crisis. It also made the characters hard to relate to at times since their speech didn't match their circumstance

Overall I wanted the last half of the book to live up to front half and it just fell short. So 5⭐️ for the concept, 4⭐️ for the characters and 3⭐️ for overall execution which has the heaviest weight.

Thank you @netgalley and @poisonedpenpress for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. The Woman In The Library is out TODAY 📖

**Thank you to @netgalley and @poisonedpenpress for this ARC. The Woman in the Library is out today, 6/7/22.**

I don’t think I’ve ever actually discussed it on here, but one of my favorite tropes across any medium is the found/chosen family. People who start out perfect strangers and quickly become everything to each other. This book delivers in spades.

Bonded together by the simple fact that they’re all in the Boston Public Library when a scream cuts through the silence, the relationships between Winnifred, Marigold, Whit and Cain is sweet and warm and often funny.

But of course, this is a mystery and when a body is eventually discovered, the four friends become entangled become entangled in a horror that will test those newfound bonds.

The central plot and mystery are excellent, but because I’m a weirdo, I think I enjoyed the story within the story even more, with a character who slips so easily from charming and affable to outright terrifying so quickly you don’t even notice the transition.

🌟🌟🌟💫/5

Hannah Tigone, successful Sydney author, is writing a new book. She's set it in Boston, Massachusetts, and that being an almost literal antipode to Sydney, she needs some help with the local color. Traveling there is out; this is the time of COVID. Google Street View is something you're not quite going to get the "feel" of a place from; the look, yes. Maybe if it were a refresher for a previously visited place...but no. Enter Leo Johnson, Boston-based novelist and strangely excited research/local-color assistant to Hannah. His take, which becomes an intake, on the story is a framing device for a strange (and not entirely successful) hybrid epistolary/story-within-story tale of murders, criminality, race, and reconciliation.

The manner of the story's introduction:
I am a bricklayer without drawings, laying words in sentences, sentences into paragraphs, allowing my walls to twist and turn on whim...no framework...just bricks interlocked...no idea what I'm building or if it will stand...no symmetry, no plan, just the chaotic unplotted bustle of human life.

It's all there from the get-go...the beautiful, elegant phrase-making, the sheer bravado of owning up to feeling confused and not being quite up to the task in hand...well! Okay, I know where my money's going on the craps table. We're heading for Misdirection City by way of The Long and Winding Road.

What follows is largely that, only it's split into segments by the nature of its authors-collaborating (increasingly Leo inserts his personal take on the story Hannah sends him, and he doesn't hold back from the get-go). My best example of this is very early in the book, when the dreaded "separated by a common language" issue rears its confusing head.

Australian/Commonwealth-usage note: The word "jumper" does not exist in the US. It appears to mean "sweater" or "sweatshirt" more often than not as used in this book. But believe your local-colorist...it is not extant in US contexts. At all. If you say it to a street-American they will stare at you...a few might ask, in mild bewilderment, if you mean "jumpsuit" which you most emphatically do not:
<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuX018bspeLF1wYB6wWBwSk2Nfwx7p0i5K-y1g275B8eEdsSgH_BGNSukXnR1NyT0sVA_OgkMXAvyKmct-h9WXh_M4NQYs8ur2NoedeTbuXMj76pB56okPT64Q1iG1KAZh48hH0BLhhWVyLh8-KkcelN4JjWg1uX7VdSjxeuGhKKa-E1SNp-a3bP14gg/s320/jumpsuit.jpg"width=300>
NOT a normal, unobtrusive street-wear item like a sweater or sweatshirt. Like our Hannah means it to be. It's at this point that I began to trust the framing device, about which review-readers have heard, to deliver on its often overlooked promise: Can authors working together be translated into a satisfying reading experience?

It can. It does. It's going to require a little bit more effort from you, I will be honest; you'll need to use your own little grey cells to make the connections you need to make. I won't go into why that is, because it's not just a spoiler but because it's a feature of the story. If anyone reading this hasn't read [The Fan], it's a great next stop on the epistolary-novel-as-suspense trip. There are some very interesting similarities in the framing device...epistolary novels aren't all that often the choice authors make for suspense stories, and that accounts for a lot of it.

What keeps me from running down my street shoving the book into the hands of strangers (I live on the boardwalk in a beach town, so that's not as counterproductive as it first sounds) is the fact that the framing device keeps the pace of the action down. It's a feature of thrillers, which is what this is, to move quickly from scene to scene. In this case that does not happen. It's not a *fatal* flaw, but it's a real one.

It's all the rest of the features of Winifred/Freddie the Aussie in Boston as stand-in for Hannah the Sydney author creating her that kept me going when the pace flagged. It's the intricacies of the story-world (and the sneaky, weird ending!) that caused the most scalp-scratching moments and the most grin-producing realizations.

I'd say that four stars should shine on your path to the bookery of your choice to procure your own copy.

This is a tricky one for me to review. It was compulsively readable and kept me up far too late on a school night. I wasn't sure how I felt about the metafiction of a story within a story, but overall that worked for me and added some really delicious interest to what might have been a banal story. The interplay of Boston and Australia was fascinating as well. I definitely guessed the culprit right away, but the journey to the solution to the crime had enough twists and turns to keep me turning pages. Four thrilling stars!

4 stars!

This reading experience took a moment to get used to being so meta (a book inside a book (writing a book)) but displayed it very well. You’ll get the hang of it after two or three switches in narrative!

I was hooked immediately with the cliffhangers in every last sentence of Hannah’s story and the mystery of the classic who-dun-it. The two main characters in Hannah’s story being writers and bringing up plot devices and discussing/critiquing each other’s books was a delightful! I couldn’t put it down once I got into the story of these four unlikely characters bonding over a scream and getting pulled into the mystery of the murder and chaos that ensues from there.

If you enjoy mystery novels and behind the scenes of writing details, I think you’d thoroughly enjoy this novel.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press for granting me access to the ARC via NetGalley.

“I am a bricklayer without drawings, laying words in sentences, sentences into paragraphs, allowing my walls to twist and turn on whim…no framework…just bricks interlocked…no idea what I’m building or if it will stand…no symmetry, no plan, just the chaotic unplotted bustle of human life.”

THE WOMAN IN THE LIBRARY
Thank you, NetGalley, Sulari Gentill, and Poisoned Pen Press for the opportunity to read this book! It will release on June 7th, 2022.

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill is somewhat of a unique story setup. It is actually a story within a story, almost within another story—but we will get to that later. Our story begins with four individuals who happen to be in the same area of the Boston Public Library when suddenly there is a scream. Winifred, known as Freddie, Marigold, Whit, and Cain is somewhat bonded by this event, and a friendship blossoms. However, when the news breaks that a woman was found murdered in the BPL, they begin to ponder what had happened. Then Freddie starts to get strange messages and then soon realizes they are all in danger.

I came so close to DNFing this book. The premise sounded so promising and the first two chapters had me hooked. Then the novelty wore off and the pace dragged. I could not bring myself to care about the characters, especially with those weird letters from Leo. I kept thinking how annoying his letters were and how if I were the recipient I would no longer respond…then there was the twist. And my god what a twist!! Everything changed for me in that instant.

The second half of the book is intense. I could not put it down. I had to know what happens in both stories. Everything seems to happen at once. The characters become more fleshed out. Freddie is determined to piece together this mystery, while Cain harbors so many secrets. Marigold is Marigold, I am not going to lie, she is my least favorite in the group. Whit is laid back and born into privilege. What at first seemed like a very surface-level story turned into a mystery that became unpredictable with multiple complexities–there are hints of social standing, school to prison pipeline, and guilty of self-defense. I have not felt so torn by a book before as I hated the first half but loved the second half! It was definitely worth the read in the end.

This is a meticulously plotted mystery that engages from the first page before getting seriously bogged down In the middle chapters. Too many characters and confusing clues add to a lot of introspective navel gazing that detracts from a very simple plot line. The main character from is both ridiculous and very illogical and Cain's backstory is revealed not through detective investigation by Freddie but by police officers. The internet is clearly not something she thought of using to research the three new wealthy friends she had suddenly met and seems to trust immediately.
The secondary plot line of a mystery character commenting on a fiction author’s work simply does not make sense and did not add anything for me.
Sorry, This did not work for me.

The Woman in the Library has all the murderous appeal: a scream is heard in the Boston Library by four strangers and guess what? Hours later they find out someone was murdered! As the unexpected group bonds and becomes friends, questions arise when their pasts are not as squeaky-clean as they'd like each other to believe.

What also may (or may not) be appealing is that this is a story-within-a-story. Our murder mystery with an author main character is being penned by an author who reveals the story chapter by chapter as it is sent to a fan/early reader. A very fun concept, especially if you enjoy more than one plotline.

While The Woman in the Library had all the right parts for a perfect mystery, it didn't slap my whodunnit bone like I thought it might. It is creative and intriguing, but I wish the story-within-a-story was extended into two books or perhaps interacted with more in this. One of them ended up not adding anything for me.

The cast was great, although Freddie (the novel MC) was pretty naïve at times. Gentill also writes a stalker SO well, I hope she one day releases a crime focusing on those aspects!

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC.

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me. The story within a story and exchanging of letters at the end of each chapter was just blah for me. I wasn’t excited to turn the page even though there was a murder that took place. It just fell flat for me.

While I didn’t enjoy this I know that there are a number of mystery book clubs that will find this worthy of discussion. I found it rather slow, the writer writing a murder mystery within a writer telling the story confusing at times. And Leo was just annoying with his American recommendations, not helpful at all. But the ending twist was good.

This book really felt like it was trying to do too much. It was a book about an author writing a book about an author writing a book. Trippy, right? The story with Hannah and Leo on the outside of the Freddie narrative just didn't feel necessary to me at all. I actually didn't enjoy that part very much. The internal story with Freddie and her gang of library friends was pretty slow — then that coupled with the annoying Leo made me want to scream OH MY GOD SHUT UP more times than I can count. This two-star read turned into a three-star read right at the end when there was a pretty decent plot twist. But you have to get through a lot of muck to make it there. And even then it feels like a very rushed ending that literally happens in the last 2 chapters.

Another book that I so wanted to love based on the premise (murder in a library!) but felt a bit lacking in its execution.

It’s hard to say much without saying too much, ja feel? Just know that it has numerous layers, stories within stories oOoOo. While one storyline really captivated me, the other just felt unnecessary in the end.

I’ll always give credit where credit is due: this was a 24-hour read for me. I found myself thinking about it during meetings and couldn’t wait to pick it up again! We love a quick, easy, bingeable read.

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to review this copy of The Woman in the Library. As I read it, I found myself intrigued by the book-within-a-book setting, and the addition of the letters in the story. The cast of characters was thoughtful, and I enjoyed the ambiguity of the setting. Overall, I enjoyed it and rated in 5/5 stars on Goodreads.

There were a lot of fun levels to this story. An author 's murder mystery novel filled with twists and turns, and the reader providing feedback to the author. I liked the formatting of this, which did take a bit of getting used to, as it provided a mystery within a mystery, a story within a story, and added to the sense of unease and mystery when the two stories seem to become tangled by murder and characters, and reality vs. fiction is more and more difficult to separate.

This is a book written by an author who is writing about an author writing about two authors. Again, multiple layers. I found that it was easy to keep the differences and ideas separate as they were clearly distinguished by font and clear explanation. The multiple layers provided more interest for me as I was untangling two stories and watching for multiple clues. The "main" story, four diverse strangers who become entangled in a murder mystery, was compelling and propelled me through the story as I kept changing my mind on who the murderer was due to revealed secretes, lies, and evidence. A lot happens from anonymous gifts, warning texts, attacks, etc... that keeps the plot fast-paced.

I rate this a 3.5 because the main character, Freddie, kept making foolish choices and seemed to fall instantly in love in a very dangerous situation. She also got a lot of clues and warnings that seemed to go completely unnoticed while she was very aware of more implicit elements. Also, while I liked the idea of the subplot, I wanted more of it. When I got to the end its importance seemed to fizzle and wrap up much too easily.

Grab a coy of The Woman in the Library for a fun whodunnit with a unique format grab, a library setting, unexpected ending, and fast-paced read.

The 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."

I enjoyed this murder mystery, but I'm not sure how to describe the book. Let's just say the plot witty and intelligent and intriguing. I found the entire concept was imaginative and well done. I liked the nicknames the main character, Winifred Kincaid, gave the others at the library table: Handsome Man, Freud Girl, Heroic Chin - kind of fun. A crisis always seems to bring people together; this time these disparate people at the library table become friends and keep meeting up. Who's the murderer? I really had no idea! The twists as this mystery unfolded were well done and kept me reading.

Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press through Netgalley for an advance copy. This book will be published on June 7, 2022.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. Pub date: June 7, 2022

This is about a writer, writing to a writer, who is writing a book about a writer writing a book. It took me a bit to wrap my head around it but if you’re still with me then you’re one step ahead!

I found myself wanted to read the novel the writer is writing instead of this story about the writer writing it. Unfortunately this story within a story is a bit tiring to keep straight and I found it, along with the first person narrative, rather distracting.

I found Leo’s constant notes on things “we don’t do/say in America” to be unnecessary (especially when a number of them aren’t even correct). After reading and understanding everything (as an American), it was strange to then read a critique of notes saying Americans wouldn’t understand it. How daft does the author think we are?

In the end, I DNF around 60%. I could not wrap my head around how these characters interacted with each other—it was too unrealistic to keep reading and I just couldn’t force myself to care.

<b>Note:</b> I received an advanced copy of this book from Poisoned Pen Press via NetGalley.

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.

This book was a refreshing whodunit style with captivating characters. An unputdownable beach read that was immensely fast-paced and thrilling.

Wow— this book completely blew me away. I’m going to be honest, I didn’t go into it with massively high expectations. Not for any particular reason, I just didn’t know a lot about the book so didn’t really form an idea of where it was going to go. Needless to say. I was absolutely taken aback by how sucked into The Woman in the Library I was, and how quickly!

The story follows a sort of “Inception” style format with a book inside a book (inside a book?) The main storyline follows the MC Frankie, an Australian author living in Boston on a writing scholarship. One afternoon she hears a horrible, bloodcurdling scream at the Boston Public Library. The incident unites her with her table mates— Whit, Marigold and Cain. The novel follows them trying to solve the murder and the increasingly convoluted plot that questions all of their alibis for the murder that took place at the BPL that day.

What really made this story in my opinion is the emails at the end of each chapter from a keen beta reader, Leo, to a novelist he is helping research for. The novelist, Hannah, is writing the main story we are reading and Leo becomes more and more agitated and interfering as the main storyline progresses. The inclusion of the side plot in the form of (rather unhinged) emails was a genius addition and made this a top read for me.

The characters are well developed and intriguing, though I do feel as if Marigold and Whit could have been a little more rounded as characters, though as the story was told from Freddie’s POV I can understand why she spent less time focused on them compared to Cain.

The story kept me guessing until the end and although I wished for a *little* more clarity at the ending, I though it kept just the right amount of ambiguity for a truly great thriller novel. I’d highly recommend The Woman in the Library for anyone who likes original plot structures, twisty thrillers that keep you guessing and crime novels with more of a literary feel. 4.5/5 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publishers for the E-ARC to read and review.

"The Woman in the Library" by: Sulari Gentill is in a word BRILLIANT! This is easily my favorite read of 2022 thus far which is not an easy title to earn as I've read several books this year. There is just something so enthralling, elegant, and absolutely enticing about the world Sulari Gentill created in "The Woman in the Library." I am an avid fan of Mystery novels since I was a child (thanks completely to Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and this novel had me on the edge of my seat and unable to read the pages fast enough to find out "whodunit?" 

"The Woman in the Library," tells 2 masterful tales for the price of 1. You have the "main" mystery which follows our 4 main characters: Freddie, Cain, Marigold, and Whit who are all brought together after having been strangers at the library when a shrill scream pierced through the Reading Room. This singular event brings the characters together and creates friendships, relationships, and one overall astounding mystery. The subplot is told through a series of emails between author Hannah who is writing the mystery of the scream in the library novel and her fan/beta reader Leo and that story though it is not the main one keeps you on the edge of your seat and I believe I was exactly at the end of Chapter 18 when I started screaming (not in a bad way) and nearly gave my husband a heart attack. 

I will happily admit that on more than one occasion I was certain I knew exactly who had done what and how they had done it and each time I was proven wrong; I love a mystery that can surprise me which I find is hard to do these days as so many tropes have been used over and over again. "The Woman in the Library" was a breath of fresh air in the realm of mystery novels and takes what many know about mysteries and still manages to keep the reader guessing and going on a wild ride. 

As I've stated I greatly enjoy mysteries and of course, the mystery part of a mystery novel is one of the best parts, but I find what I love the most about a good mystery novel is the people. The characters that the author brings to life upon the page are the true lifeblood of any well-told mystery. "The Woman in the Library" has an astounding cast of characters and I felt a pang of sadness when the story wrapped as if I had to say goodbye to good friends. 

I can without a doubt say that "The Woman in the Library" is a must-read for fans of Mystery and Thriller novels, and it will sit proudly on my shelf right at home with my favorite mystery novels.