DNF'd at 18%

I was drawn in by the premise of a woman trying to discover her fathers secrets in amongst his rare book collection, while navigating the world for a woman during WWII. Sadly this did not worked for me.

Theres a death in the academy at the beginning of the book which sets up the mystery.

Not long after this is where I found the story get bogged down, specially when Estella is remembering her parents. I understand (hoped) this backstory was setting up for future plot points, but it didn't seem to hold any value to hold my interest. I felt like I kept waiting for the story to move forward, yet it stayed at a stand still.

I struggled with the writing style in connecting with the story & characters.

Estelle Ecker has returned home due to her father's health and mother's isappearance. When her father passes
away, Estelle struggles to pay off her father's debts while searching for her mother. Searching for answers, she
discovers what happened to her mother and her father's secret source of income. Hidden secrets of community
members are revealed, changing lives forever.
#TheDarkLibrary #PoisonedPenPress #NetGalley

Set in the 1940's after the Pearl Harbor bombing, the reader finds himself in a small town not far from Boston, a young woman who recently earned her doctorate in literature, returns home after the death of her father and disappearance of her mother. E as she likes to be balled, had escaped a domineering father. Now, she must deal with all he has left behind--a crumbling estate, a wife who is missing, and secrets that have long been hidden. The story has the gothic feel and the first-person narration moves the tale but at times a bit slowly. Secrets are slowly revealed, and the reader must decide who can be trusted as must E. The author does a good job in showing the lack of emancipation for women in the 1940's. Thanks to Net Galley for the arc.

This book was just not for me, that being said it still was well written. Thank you to NetGalley and loosened pen press for the arc of this book.

“The Dark Library” by Mary Anna Evans
Reviewed by Claire Hamner Matturro
Mary Anna Evans has been intriguing readers with her masterful and intelligent mysteries for over two decades. During this time, Mississippi-born Evans earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Rutgers University and a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Exeter and became an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma. Given her background, it is no surprise that her latest novel, “The Dark Library” (Poisoned Pen Press, 2025), continues her tradition of well-crafted, character-driven, and compellingly layered mysteries.

“The Dark Library” is a marvelous book, rich with remarkable characters and suspense, skillfully exploring the explosive collision of dark family secrets and deadly shames buried in a college’s history. The novel returns to the World War II era, as seen in Evans’ recent books, “The Physicist’s Daughter” and “The Traitor Beside Her.” As in these prior works, the protagonist is a highly intelligent woman navigating what was then historically a male-dominated profession—this time, academia in 1942.

The opening line sets the tone and immediately immerses readers in the complex plot: “I suppose there are more soul-destroying places to die than at the foot of an ivory tower, but I can’t think of any.” The character reflecting on this is Dr. Estella Emily Eckerd, Ph.D., who prefers to be called E. The dead man is Dean Jameson, the dean of Arts and Sciences at Bentham College in the small town of Bentham-on-Hudson. He is also E’s boss, and she was apparently the last person to speak with him before he fell from the tower to his death.

The dean’s bewildering death might be the first mystery, but it won’t be the last. His demise is intricately woven into a growing collection of unanswered questions. E’s father, a feared college professor, recently died, and her mother is missing and presumed to have jumped off a cliff into the bay below. When officials drag the water searching for her body, they instead dredge up the remains of Helena Frederick, a pretty college student who disappeared fifteen years earlier. The connections between the dead dean, the long-missing student, and E’s own parents remain confoundingly perplexing. To further complicate matters, E discovers she is being spied upon.

Personally consumed with the search for her mother, E is haunted by her parents' tumultuous relationship. Her mother, a beautiful poet and an enigma, vanished the same day her father was stricken with what would soon kill him. Annie, the family’s faithful housekeeper and a close friend to E and her mother, reveals harrowing details of that day, though they provide no solid answers.

Summoned home from her teaching position in Boston, E struggles with professional discrimination. A Yale Ph.D. holder, she seeks the respect and title that a man with her credentials would receive. However, Dean Jameson refuses to offer her an equivalent title, office, or salary, relegating her to research. When the war depletes the college’s faculty of male professors, she takes on their teaching responsibilities but remains underpaid and unrecognized. Though she longs to find a better position, her search for her mother keeps her in Bentham-on-Hudson. Her father’s menacing memory looms over both E and Annie as they continue their search.

Two men seek E’s affections: one, the family lawyer who offers financial security, and the other, a young professor who holds the teaching position she should have. Each harbors his own mysteries, and neither entirely adds up. Nevertheless, E is drawn to the professor.

As the title suggests, “The Dark Library” has strong gothic elements. Hawke Hall, from which Dean Jameson fell, is described as an “ugly heap of stone and bricks with round towers,” resembling “a castle designed by an architect who had only seen castles in books.” Rockfall House, E’s childhood home to which she has returned, is an “aged, turreted Victorian home” perched halfway up a cliff. The house holds closely guarded secrets, including hidden passages, a vast library of valuable books containing clues, and disguised rooms. While there is no literal ghost, the long-missing Helena effectively serves as one, haunting the characters through the mystery of her death.

“The Dark Library” pays homage to Agatha Christie and Daphne du Maurier in skilled and effective ways. The story approaches Christie’s locked-room mystery concept but teasingly stops short of fully embracing it. Readers should also watch for a passage that honors a classic scene from du Maurier’s “Rebecca.” Given that Evans is a Christie scholar and co-edited “The Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie,” this homage is well-executed and adds intensity to the novel.

All in all, “The Dark Library” is a compelling, complex mystery that showcases Evans’ considerable talents. The novel exudes a brooding sense of doom, unsettling at times with its multiple deaths and missing mother. Ultimately, the many buried secrets will erupt in the aging mansion on the cliffside.

The multi-award-winning Mary Anna Evans holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Exeter, as well as an MFA and a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering. She is the acclaimed author of the Faye Longchamp archaeological mysteries, a college professor, and a frequent guest lecturer.

Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the ARC

Gothic historical fiction-This would be the best way to describe this.

Set between 1920-1940 we meet E. A women who just witnessed something horrible that leads to uncovering some dark things.

This book has me hooked from page one, but I will say at some points it got really slow.

All in all it was a good read.

Absolutely fascinating read that had me intrigued throughout. Initially, I couldn't work out what was dark about the library other than E's dad being a terrible person and somewhat pretentious. However, it all unfolds and the darkness revealed. I didn't expect it to unravel the way it does so was pleasantly surprised.

E has great relationships within this but also some that she finds tricky. She's a little awkward and not a social butterfly like her mother. She does have a loyal friendship group though and it's good to see how these support her journey. Just a shame things change with one of them but E hasn't given up.

The initial mystery of locating her mum dominates the story at first but the focus shifts and there's a lot that happens in this. A really enjoyable read!!

The Dark Library is a historical fiction mystery set between the 1920s and 1940s, following a would-be professor of Gothic Literature as she uncovers family secrets in a small East Coast town during WWII. While the premise is intriguing, the dialogue often feels too modern for the time period, making it hard to stay immersed in the setting. Despite strong period details in clothing, traditions, and themes, the language feels out of place. Overall, I rated it 3.5/5 but rounded up to 4.

Unfortunately this book didn’t do it for me. It started with a good premise but I found it started to drag halfway into the story and I started to lose interest. I did finish the book but it just wasn’t for me.

The Dark Library is a gothic novel set as WWII is beginning. E has come back to her hometown after her father’s illness and her mother’s disappearance and is teaching at the local college, but unable to get a professor level job because she is female. Her father was overbearing and evil and has left little but debts behind and a huge house to keep up. She is unable to get the local police to really search for her mother, so she is doing that herself.
I gave this book 3 stars because I really didn’t get into the story for well into the second half of the book. Once the pace started up, the story caught my interest. It was a combination of a war mystery, historical fiction, and gothic which somehow worked in the end.
Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the ARC.

I normally wouldn’t reach for this style of novel, but I love books set in historical moments, and this one, set during World War II, kept me turning pages late into the night.

One of the things I appreciated most was how it captured the experience of being a woman in academia and society at that time. The protagonist isn’t just navigating a murder mystery—she’s also navigating a world where she has to rely on men to do things as basic as paying a mortgage. While some readers might see these historical details as unrelated to the central mystery, I found they added real depth, shaping the tension in her relationships and influencing the stakes of the story.

Beyond that, it’s an incredibly entertaining read. The balance of suspense, a touch of romance, and historical intrigue kept me guessing without ever feeling predictable. The writing flows effortlessly, making it the perfect book for a long flight, a day by the pool, or even just an evening when you want to escape into a different time and place.

Thank you Netgalley for this arc. Estella ran away years ago due to her overbearing father. He's dead, her mothers missing, and she's back in town teaching at the same college he taught. She inherits his home and library since her mother has gone missing. Estella soon learns this library is dark and holding a bunch of secrets her father was able to keep her from when he was still alive.

I rated this book 3/5. I loved the women characters, especially the E and her best friends. As they navigated life as young women in 1942 New York. The little romance it did have between E and Devan was nice. I loved reading their parts and how they interacted with each other. I think the book was too long. I felt some things were not needed for the story and the mystery of the story was placed in the backdrop. Maybe I was expecting more thriller mystery parts, like when the window was open or the raft floating by the back of the house. It seemed as if it was going to pick up right then but it didn't. The twist was nice at the end about the whole situation as E looked back on everything.

The Dark Library unfortunately was not my cup of tea. I found to be very boring and without purpose. There was not enough suspense and too many characters. I kept wondering what the point of the story was I was reading it. The stakes needed to be made clear from the very beginning and the story needed faster pacing and more mystery.

Unfortunately this was a miss for me.

A dead father. A mother, missing but presumed dead. And something suspicious about her father’s library. Very intriguing!

It was a little hard to get into the book at first, even with the suicide of Dean. By the time I got to the chapter where E’s family and home life were introduced, I did get excited and interested to learn more about E, her parents, Annie, and her home to read on. There were a lot of unexpected surprises and twists and turns to keep track of, but I enjoyed the suspense of it all. I enjoyed learning of the secrets of the library and the basement, and all the other individuals involved. I also enjoyed the ending as it provided a conclusion to all my questions.

Wow, this story will draw you in. E is right in the middle of a murder case when the Dean flies down from the tower in front of her. Who killed him?? She’s also trying to find her mom (many believe is dead)? She learns her father is a blackmailer. Oh my, there are so many secrets in the story and E will find out what’s going on, even if she doesn’t want to. She might even find a new romance. It’s a neat story written in the time of WW2 and given from a woman’s POV. It was a little slow at the start but did build as the story went on. The twists that went along on the journey were well done and transitioned smooth. The characters were great. Annie, E. Leontine, and Devan really brought out the story. They made for a really good ensemble. Mom made me think of the screen actressesses from the old days. I loved trying to figure out who the culprits were. It’s a really great story with nice engagement for the reader.

The first two thirds of this book were very slow paced and it was hard for me to feel engaged. I was intrigued by the main character Estella who goes by E but it was hard to keep track of many of the side characters. Too much emphasis in the day to day life and not enough of the mystery or suspense that was promised for this part of the book. The last third of the book finally gets into what this book is building towards and I really enjoyed the conclusion and how everything unraveled. The gothic scenery was also a real treat.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I loved this book - the setting on the Hudson River in New York State, the old mansion, and the Gothic mystery. I couldn't put this one down, and I know anyone who loves suspenseful mysteries and Gothics will love this book.

If you enjoy Gothics filled with menace, secrets, and strong women confronting the unthinkable, The Dark Library by Mary Anna Evans will keep you hooked from start to finish. Set in a small college town in New York during the early days of WWII, the novel follows Estella “E” Ecker, a woman caught between the constraints of her gender and the weight of her family’s dark history. With a PhD in Literature, she’s relegated to a research assistant position, where she struggles against the inequities of her time.

The story unfolds as Estella returns to her hometown after her mother’s mysterious disappearance and her father’s sudden death. Despite the police's conclusion that her mother is gone for good, Estella refuses to believe it, convinced her mother is alive somewhere. As Estella starts her new job at the local college, a suspicious death occurs, propelling her into a tangled web of secrets about her family’s past.

Set against the backdrop of WWII-era challenges—rationing, the absence of men, and the fear of spies—Estella’s quest for answers is made even more difficult by the social constraints placed on women at the time. As she delves deeper into her family’s past, she uncovers disturbing truths about how her father made his money and what the “dark library” truly means.

Though the story moves slowly at first, with hints and mysteries dropping throughout, the suspense steadily builds. The last 10-15% of the book delivers an intense payoff as all the secrets come to light. Estella's journey from a woman struggling to assert herself in a world that marginalizes her, to uncovering the dark secrets that have haunted her family, is deeply compelling.

The Dark Library is a slow-burn suspense novel, perfect for those who enjoy atmospheric, twist-filled reads that unfold piece by piece. It’s an ideal choice for a dark, rainy night or a quiet weekend read—just be prepared for a thrilling, satisfying conclusion that will leave you thinking long after you finish.

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.