The Dark Library by Mary Anna Evans is a complex tale of life in the USA following its belated entry into World War II, and the disparities between rich and poor, educated and layman, and male and female, that were laid bare because of the war. The story is seen from the point of view of women, and in particular that of Dr. Estella Ecker, who returns home to her family's manor upon the illness of her father and the disappearance of her mother.
The book hints at various family mysteries, entertains a budding romance, examines the nature of female friendships and familial relationships, as it ambles forward. The story really only takes off at the approximately 70% mark, at which point it careens forward with increasingly darker revelations and developments that will leave your head spinning. While the book is relatively easy to set aside for the first part, the final quarter will keep you turning the pages to the end.
Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC of #TheDarkLibrary.

Can a family's dark history repeat itself?

Estella Ecker has returned to Rockfall House, the last place on earth she wants to be. Years after she ran away from her overbearing father, she has been forced back home to walk in his footsteps, teaching at the college he dominated and living in the fabulous home where he entertained artists and scholars for decades―and perhaps she owns it now, because her mercurial mother has disappeared. At the center of everything―the whispers, the rumors, the secrets―is her father's library of rare books, which she had been forbidden to touch while he was alive to stop her.

Everyone in town is watching Estella, with her dead father's name on their lips, and no one seems to care about her missing mother. Who were her parents, really, and is the answer hidden somewhere in the depths of Rockfall House? And who will Estella be, if she gathers enough courage to find that answer? What she will discover is that no one can escape the secrets hidden in this dark library.

Suspenseful and unsettling but ultimately triumphant, The Dark Library by acclaimed author Mary Anna Evans is a compelling tale of mystery, family secrets, and the quest for truth.

This was such an incredible read!! The synopsis left me with so many questions, and the book ended up being so amazing. Loved the vibes as well!

Rave Review: The Dark Library by Mary Anna Evans (Expected June 2025)

Mary Anna Evans has done it again—The Dark Library is a masterfully crafted literary mystery that ensnares you from the first haunting line and doesn’t let go until the very last page. This upcoming release is a rich, layered novel that blends history, academia, and suspense with the atmospheric tension of a gothic thriller.

Set in the shadowy corners of an old university library rumored to be cursed, Evans transports readers into a world where forgotten archives conceal more than just dusty manuscripts—they hold dangerous secrets. With her signature blend of vivid prose and meticulous research, Evans draws on her background as both a writer and academic to create a plot that is as intellectually satisfying as it is gripping.

The protagonist—a sharp, determined archivist with a past she’d rather forget—uncovers a chilling mystery that intertwines with her own history in ways she could never have imagined. What follows is a twisting narrative of lost books, secret societies, and a truth buried beneath decades of silence. The character development is stellar, particularly the lead’s journey through trauma, self-discovery, and ultimately, redemption.

Evans balances psychological depth with a fast-paced plot that will keep readers turning pages well into the night. The Dark Library is not just a mystery—it’s a love letter to libraries, knowledge, and the courage it takes to uncover truth in a world built on shadows.

If you’re a fan of The Shadow of the Wind, The Historian, or Evans’ own Faye Longchamp series, this book is a must-read. Prepare to be spellbound.

5/5 stars – a triumph of literary suspense. Pre-order it now.

"Can a family's dark history repeat itself?

Estella Ecker has returned to Rockfall House, the last place on earth she wants to be. Years after she ran away from her overbearing father, she has been forced back home to walk in his footsteps, teaching at the college he dominated and living in the fabulous home where he entertained artists and scholars for decades - and perhaps she owns it now, because her mercurial mother has disappeared. At the center of everything - the whispers, the rumors, the secrets - is her father's library of rare books, which she had been forbidden to touch while he was alive to stop her.

Everyone in town is watching Estella, with her dead father's name on their lips, and no one seems to care about her missing mother. Who were her parents, really, and is the answer hidden somewhere in the depths of Rockfall House? And who will Estella be, if she gathers enough courage to find that answer? What she discovers is that no one can escape the secrets hidden in this dark library.

Suspenseful and unsettling but ultimately triumphant, The Dark Library by acclaimed author Mary Anna Evans is a compelling tale of mystery, family secrets, and the quest for truth."

I want into that library as well!

The Dark Library was entertaining enough—I didn’t dislike it—but it felt pretty messy overall. The pacing was odd, with not much happening for a while and then a sudden barrage of twists that felt more chaotic than clever. I get what it was going for, but it didn’t quite land for me.

The whole setting of this book was fantastic and very exciting to read. it was alot different than most WWII books, which was fresh and new. It did get a little slow for me but then alot happened the last quarter of the book.

Really wish it was evenly paced and not squished together at the end; it made it feel a little rushed.

This book was really good. It was WWII era that did not focus on the war but the lives of people in NY at that time. The ongoing war was really more in the background throughout the book.

While the beginning was good and there were a couple good twists, it did move a little on the slow side which some people may like. At 75% the pace really picked up and everything happened SO quickly that I wish the pacing had been more even to flush some things out in the end. There were a couple parts in the wrap-up that confused me but I very likely just missed something earlier on.

I would recommend to anyone who likes slower paced suspense and/or historical fiction.

🤫 T R O U B L E S O M E T H U R S D A Y review 🤫 featuring “The Dark Library” by Mary Anna Evans!

Estella Ecker fled from her overbearing father the moment she could for her university degree and doctorate in English literature.

Now she has gone back to Rockfall House after she caught word of her mother’s disappearance and her father’s sudden death. Bentham-on-Hudson is a small college town in New York and is struggling through World War 2. Regardless of her PhD, Estella finds herself stuck as a research assistant at the college where her father once dominated as a top administrator.

But all eyes are on her … as her father held onto A LOT of secrets, rumours and answers that could ruin many of the townspeople. Hidden in the depths of his extensive and rare library lay secrets so dark and disturbing that Estella has no idea what her father was really capable of.

I enjoyed the genre mash up of historical fiction, gothic mystery and suspense all together. The mysterious library and the crumbling house on the cliff are characters of their own and creates such a menacing, haunting and unsettling atmosphere for reads to get wrapped into!

Thank you kindly to @maryannaevans @poisonedpenpress @netgalley for my #gifted advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review. This book releases on June 24, 2025!

I really enjoyed reading this book, kept me interested and guessing until the very end.i would read more books by this author.

This started out strong and held my interest until about the halfway mark. The book just seemed to have no direction and no clue what genre it wanted to be. The pace was astonishingly slow and the writing bored me. There was WAY too much unnecessary filler and dialogue. I DNF'd around the 70% mark and tried skimming through the rest. It seemed to continue with the confusion and was all over the place. I really had no desire to find out how it would end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for and ARC in exchange for my honest review.

5 Star Read
Mood: Slow-burn Modern Gothic Mystery
I've never read Mary Anna Evans writing before, but I loved this book. I'm so glad that I came across this stand alone, as I feel like it was a really great way to get a sense of her style without committing to an unfamiliar series. Now that I've read The Dark Library, however, I'll definitely be TBRing both of her popular series!

As for The Dark Library novel itself, wow! The plotline was delicately laced with just the right amount of intricately laid clues to keep me guessing - incorrectly - the entire time. The character development and characters' backstory development were very good for a short novel; particularly one with a fairly long list of secondary characters. The secondary characters while plentiful, do all feel necessary to the story by the end of the book.

I was absolutely delighted with the main character Estella, or E, as she prefers. She is a no-nonsense American Literature professor with a degree from Yale who will do anything to keep herself and her beloved housekeeper Annie afloat. Annie practically raised E and they are very close.

As the description of the book mentions, E moves home to try to determine what has become of her missing mother. However, once home, her journey turns into one of much greater magnitude - one that could potentially affect the fate of not just her family. The secrets that E and her two close friends uncover together could cause a ripple effect of devastating consequences for the entire community that they live in, and perhaps even further away.

There is a bit of a romantic thread gently woven through out as well, but it is minimal and doesn't overshadow the storyline at all. In fact, if anything it's used conveniently here and there to help the story along. The entire story is a very well done, modern Gothic piece that alternates between a slow and medium pace to maximize the reader's enjoyment of the slow burn mystery.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poison Pen Press for the opportunity to read this ARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

📖 ARC Review 📖

Publishing June 24, 2025

A special thank you to NetGalley, Poisoned Pen Press and author Mary Anna Evans for selecting me to receive an advanced copy of The Dark Library. 💙 This is my voluntary and honest review.

This is a standalone historical suspense that is set in the 1940's and follows Estella Ecker. Estella returns to her childhood home, Rockfall House, after the mysterious disappearance of her mother and her father having a stroke. After the death of her father she becomes the owner of Rockfall House which has a library filled with rare books. Considered off limits to her growing up, Estella (E) now has access to her father's library. What dark secrets will she uncover? It seems that E didn't know her parents as well as she thought she did.

I normally am not one to read historical but this book drew me in right away. Being a single, working woman in the 1940's proves to have its challenges and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about E as she navigates her way through life. The twists and turns of this book had me engaged throughout and I couldn't wait to learn what secrets E would uncover along the way! I will say, this isn't your typical historical fiction, or at least not what I think of when I think of historical fiction. It had lots of suspense and a great story line. I will definitely be checking out more of Mary Anna Evans' work.


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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7510019859

The Dark Library is an eerie gothic slow-paced story that unsettles the readers and brings out the darker sides of life and death. A story of the missing and murder, of past and present, of memories and truth. The story is slow paved but beautifully written so that the reader cannot help but become a character, to be drawn into the mystery that surrounds this family. I really enjoyed the mystery and the threads that are woven from the past to the present. It is a story of atmosphere as much as actions.

My rating:

Plot: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Writing: 4 out of 5 stars
Character development: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall: 4 out of 5 stars

Recommended for readers of:

Mystery
General Fiction


Review:

This is an intriguing story. When Estrella returns home her father is on his death bed and her mother has disappeared. Everything she thought she knew from her childhood isn’t quite as it seemed at the time. Slowly she goes on a journey of discovery to find her missing mother and unravel the secrets of the past.

The story is well written but slow paced focusing more on the emotional and psychological effects. The writing is atmospheric with a slightly gothic and haunted feel to it. The characters were described with the right amount detail for them to be realistic but not enough so they kept an air of mystery to them. You feel the unease of the main character, her confusion the realization that she doesn’t really know her own parents or whether any of people in town can be trusted. Slowly the mystery unfolds. This made the book suspenseful and kept me going till the end.

Review copy provided through Netgalley at no cost to me.

Dr. Estella Ecker, or 'E' as she preferred to be addressed, is such a vividly drawn protagonist that she seemed to come alive in my imagination while I read this book. The other characters are equally well-crafted, easily reminiscent of people in real life due to their relatable nature.

The narrative is both marvelous and engaging. While it bears some resemblance to other historical fiction from this era, the fictional town of Bentham- on- Hudson and its rugged cliffs are described hauntingly and beautifully. If Rockfall House were a real place, it would surely be an incredible home, and I would have enjoyed gazing up at it in wonder from the lake below the cliff - ideally from a sailboat! :)

My only disappointment was the detailed descriptions of the settings, which occasionally slowed the story's momentum. At times, I found myself skimming to see how much longer this saga lasted, which I believe diminished the reader's connection to the plot and events.

I received this book as an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!

Here's an interesting tidbit: right before diving into this book, I finished David Baldacci' s 'Strangers in Time', which came out just a few weeks ago, making it just a month between the release of both titles. Though Baldacci's story takes place in London and this one is set in a fictional locale in upstate New York, many similar themes, ideas, and events appear in both narratives, which I find an intriguing coincidence. Spoiling the specifics would ruin the fun, so I recommend that anyone who enjoys this book also read 'Strangers in Time' to catch the parallels, and let me know in the comments if you agree.

I somehow feel the book title should've been 'Rockfall House', because of the sheer size and scale in which it has been described in the book. The library, however dark and mysterious, did not have a major part to play in the plot till after 70% of the book was already over - and a very short-lived role too. The house on the bluff was omnipresent throughout, with its mysteries and suspense, right from the get-go.

Rich vocabulary - Throughout the book, I discovered numerous new words, prompting many frantic dictionary searches, which truly impressed me. I've always viewed myself as a well-read individual and a capable wordsmith, and this erudite literary piece added to my appreciation.

Mary Anna Evans is a prolific writer who skillfully crafts books that blend mystery, history, archaeology, and science in perfect harmony. This is my first encounter with her remarkable work, and I look forward to delving into more of her writings in the days to come.

And yes, thank you for acknowledging us librarians for all our contributions!

I was enjoying this book but DNF’d it about 75% in as they started bringing up the topic of rape.

I would not of picked this book up to read if I had known that the book covered the topics of SA and rape as a survivor myself I do not like reading about that kind of thing.

This book is about a woman during ww2 who’s father dies and mother goes missing and her attempt to try and track down her mother and find out what happened to her.

Like I said it was good until it wasn’t, this book needs warnings as there are subjects in it not everyone may be ok with.

Thank you Netgalley and Poisoned pen press for the arc

The dark library, by Mary Anna Evans, is a historical fiction set over the beginning of World War 2. The author mixes different genres into it, bringing mystery and family relationships into the narrative.

Although slow paced in its greater part, the sense of discovering secrets keeps the reader interested in the book. It shows Estella, preferably called E., returning home after her father is passing away and her mom reported missing, presumably dead. E. goes on investigating her mother's whereabouts, as much as the secrets kept by her father in his valuable library.

Struggling to make ends meet, E. starts making friends and meeting old colleagues, and the story keeps showing the period of war.

An interesting read for those who look for a different view on the WW2, as well as the development of an interesting dark mystery.

This one is perfect for those who like family mysteries. It is a historical fiction novel that takes place during WWII and has some splashes of the war in it, although it’s an interesting perspective. It definitely is a slower pace and the author doesn’t focus as much on the action, but more on the emotional and psychological effects of searching for the truth. It definitely has undertones of dark academia and gothic vibes, but it felt almost too slow burn for me. The author does do a good job of keeping the mystery burning, but some parts of the book just felt a little too dry. Overall, an intriguing read that’s a different take on WWII stories.

It was okay. A nice new take on historical fiction but it felt a bit confused regarding what genre it truly wanted to be.

Okay I liked this one, but I thought the dark library was actually dark and scary 🫣. I guess it is kind of 🤔 but not in the way I thought. 😁 Anyway The Dark Library is still a good book. It has really good characters and a good story though there are some things I didn’t expect or agree with, it was still a good read. The main character E, (Estella, she likes to go by E) is a professor at the University where her father worked and was well known. She was out of town on her own when her mother and father’s housekeeper, Annie, calls and says her father is not well and that she needs for her to come home quickly. Estella goes and soon after she arrives her father dies. Her mother is not there and they have no idea if she’s alive or dead. Her mother and her father had had an extremely bad argument on the day her father took sick and her mother disappeared. So now Estella and Annie are trying to take care of a mansion of a house with hardly no money, because WW II is happening and things are rationed and women doesn’t get paid well for a job well done in 1942 because they are women 😑. And from there it just gets worse. Yes I know by now I’ve realized why is this called The Dark Library? 🤔 well, I don’t and you won’t either, if you read, until towards the end, very close to the end and then it opens up and you will say “Ahhhhhh, I get it now!” Or at least I did anyway 😊 I recommend to anyone who likes mysteries, and stories with timeline around WWII. There is hardly no language, if any, and no sexual content. I would have given it 5 stars because of this, but the reason for the 4 is because I believe the library should have been spoken of more. It really wasn’t mentioned until towards the end when the ah hah moment comes around and you realize that’s why it’s the dark library. So I just felt it should have been spoken of sooner. Her father’s books were spoken about but not why it was a dark library. I just thought it should have been known to the reader much sooner. But it is still a great story with great characters. Thank you to #NetGalley, the author, and publishers for the opportunity to read and review #TheDarkLibrary with my honest thoughts and opinions. 🙂