I absolutely LOVED this book, which features a mystery within a mystery as the book is written as a story, with inserted "critiques" by an acquaintance of the fictional author who is writing the fictional story. The story mystery revolves around four strangers who meet in the Boston Public Library as they bond over the screams they heard and the murder that likely occurred after those witnessed screams. Their new friendships are plagued by secrets, insecurities and assumptions as they all try to figure out who they can trust and who they cannot. Meanwhile the fictional author of the fictional story begins to question how well she knows the "friend" who is sending feedback of this story in progress--is he just an eccentric fellow author or a creepy criminal? The story progressed at a solid pace and kept me interested with detailed writing and characters. I enjoyed the conclusive ending until the mysterious line at the very end about the elevator.... WHAT? I don't like details left hanging, but some readers might enjoy that bit! Looking forward to reading more by this author!

The Woman in the Library
Sulari Gentill

If you, like me, enjoy books that have a bookish theme, I’m sure you will love The Woman in the Library. This is a twisty thriller with some surprises in store for you. In this story, four strangers are sitting at a table in the Boston Public Library when they hear a loud scream. They begin talking and really hit it off. There has been a woman murdered, but the catch is that one of the four is the murderer. The four agree to work together to try to figure out who the murderer is. Meanwhile, Hannah, our main character is writing her newest murder mystery. The writing in this book is well done, the characters have multilayered facets and the text is complex without being confusing. I really enjoyed the parts of the book the explored Hannah’s writing process. I’m sure you will love this one!

#goodreads

While this was way different than I thought it was going to be going into it, I still really enjoyed it! I was under the impression that it was going to be a locked room mystery, so I was surprised to find that wasn't really what it was. However, I really enjoyed my reading experience, and this is such a unique book. I loved seeing how the "notes" given back to the author progressed. That story line got surprisingly creepy and I liked that! I feel like the end felt super rushed and I just kind of felt jolted a bit with how it all ended. I feel like it should've gone a little longer to explain a little bit more. Overall though, I had a good time reading and I will be picking up more from this author in the future!

"It's a bit like a locked room mystery in reverse."

This one was SO much fun! I loved it! So it starts with a scream in a library and gets 4 unlikely people talking - what do they do? Do they go investigate? Do they leave? Ignore the scream? Their chatting gets them connected. Maybe at that point there is already a bit of attraction and some smiles - maybe that's what gets them meeting up agian later. Your MC is Freddie. She's Austrailian and is in the US on a grant.

But that isn't actually how your book starts. It starts with coorespondence between two authors. Your nearly silent MC is the Australian author sending chapters to an American author. The part you read is what comes back from the US author after each chapter. It was so clever, this added sense of friendship but also anticipation. It kept me fliping the pages, curious of the current mystery within the chapters but also dying to know what was at the end, what new note from Leo would he include. The tension and suspense was killer added layer and I loved it!

At the end, there was also an added guide to help bookclubs with questions. Running book clubs is not always easy to I appreciate it when anyone takes the added time to give thoughtful questions. I also appreciated the author's notes at the end and the dilema to add or not to add the pandemic and masks into the commentary. It's a tough decision right now and I appreciated how the author added in the letters but not the story, keeping the story focused on the mystery and the players and not the real world.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

You follow along the main character as she writes a book and interacts with a fan who is giving her feedback. This book had me second guessing myself the whole time! I truly enjoyed it and couldn’t put it down! I have already recommended it to many friends!

A mystery within a mystery as the main character is writing a mystery and using the people she meets as her characters and she is getting letters from a man in the USA who is purportedly helping the writer who is in Australia.

What an interesting take on a story within a story. The Woman in the Library opens with correspondence from Leo Johnson to an Australian author who is writing a mystery, Leo is a beta reader who reads one chapter at a time. His story is told through the emails to the author alongside the book's mystery itself.

The main story is the mystery of who killed a young woman in the Boston Public Library, a woman whose scream was heard while the four main characters are working at the same reading table. How could any of them be involved since they were sitting together?

Freddie is a the recipient of a scholarship for writing and has recently moved to Boston from Australia. Sitting in the reading room, she is using the people at her table to come up with characters to use later: Handsome Man, Heroic Chin, and Freud Girl. After the scream, the 4 table-mates who had been strangers to each other, start to talk. The mystery is so well written that you can't help but suspect any of them at various times in the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery and thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for this honest review.

The ornate reading room of the Boston Public Library is a quiet, tranquil place to read. That is till it’s shattered by a woman’s scream. The security guards ask everyone inside to stay put till they have more information. Four stranger that were in the area pass the time by having conversations and determine which one is the true murderer.

I loved the story concept. The story within a story. This book has a lot of twists the perfect “who-done-it.” I loved the different character chapters and the mix of it.

All-in-all, it was definitely a book to get lost in and enjoyed!

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill is a twisty thriller set in a library so obviously perfect for book lovers.

I loved the premise and absolutely loved the beginning, it gave me chills. Really started off strong and had me hooked. We get me meet four completely different people and one of them is a murderer. We slowly get to know our protagonists and unrevel their secrets.

Unfortunately after the strong start the story slowed down considerably and I found it a bit too slow moving for my liking and I lost an interest.

I appreciated how well drawn out characters are. The story was nicely presented and the clues were easy to follow.
There are some faster and some quite slow chapters and that is the reason for lower rating other than that it is a solid mystery.

This is a mystery/thriller that I really enjoyed. I liked the format even if it took a bit to get used to. At first I was surprised that the story was set in present day because the voice especially of Freddie (early on any way) seemed out of place in the here and now.

As the book progressed I felt Freddie got very whiney and a bit unlikeable. But even with that it’s a book I’ll be recommending to friends!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

Loved the idea of this one far more than I enjoyed the execution. I wanted to love the story but it fell flat. I liked the plot well enough but as it progressed it became a story within a story that really added nothing and I just found it annoying. It was jarring enough to make me put the book down. The writing was good but the way the story was told did not work for me.

Murder incredible!

I’ll admit that I was unsure where this unusual murder mystery arose from and where it was heading. It’s definitely not a cosy mystery. It hangs around in the thriller zeitgeist.
By the time I was into the second chapter I was still trying to build a picture of events, and who was who. Talk about needing bits of tape to join the pieces together! Reality and fiction became intertwined—despite it all being fiction. By this time I’d been neatly suckered in and there was no way I was leaving.
So we begin with four unusual strangers hearing a woman’s scream in the Boston library. This single fact draws them together. The four Boston Library would-be-friends are amazing, somewhat weird, and all have secrets. I loved the whole crazy group encounter—built on a scream and held together by that event.
I really enjoyed the plot. Australian writer Hannah, a Marriott Fellowship Holder who’s working on a novel about—Yup! You guessed it—a murder mystery involving an Aussie in the US. I laughed at the writer’s comments on Chocolate, Thanksgiving and Coffee. All so true.
We also have our fictional author and our author both embedded in the novel with strange happenings occurring for both. I’m still unsure if this is fiction imitating life, or vice versa.
I should add that Sulari Gentill is one of my fav writers, and this novel keeps her there!

A Poisoned Pen Press ARC via NetGalley
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

I don't normally read mysteries, but this one was engaging and thrilling! The story-within-a-story format was unique and compelling, and I was interested from the first page to the last. Captivating characters and a well-plotted mystery make for a great read!

A thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and Netgalley for the e-book in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.

Hannah Tigone, a Sydney based writer, is writing a mystery set in Boston. She has a fan, Leo Johnson, who lives in Boston and helps her with the Boston setting. Hannah can’t visit Boston herself because of Covid so she is relying on Leo to help her with landmarks and dialect used by people living in Boston. Leo is a wannabe writer who keeps getting rejection letters and he has plenty of suggestions for Hannah and her book.

The book has a main character named. Winnifred (Freddy) Kincaid. Freddy is an Australian who is living in Boston on a writing fellowship. She is working on a novel and decides to spend the day in the ornate reading room in the Boston Public Library. There are three other people also working there and sitting at the table with her. Freddy begins to watch them, gives them names based on their appearance like Heroic Chin and Freud Girl and decides to use them in her novel. Things are very quiet until a woman’s scream is heard and they find out that someone has been murdered. Suddenly the police are there interviewing everyone in the room. Because they are each others alibis, they feel certain that they will be cleared but one of them might actually be a murderer.

As they bond and become friends over their shared experience Freddy learns that their real names are Whit, Marigold and Cain. As they begin to try and find who actually killed the women the story takes on some twists and turns and Freddy begins to wonder who she can trust. This book is a story within a story with Hannah writing her book from Australia and corresponding with Leo whose emails begin to take on a dark tone and her main character Freddy, writing her book.

The Woman in the Library is an engaging but sometimes confusing mystery because it was sometimes difficult to keep the storylines straight. I loved the Boston setting in the library and around Boston and it kept me reading to find out who the killer was.

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A perfectly serviceable mystery wrapped in an intriguingly meta structure.

Australian mystery writer Winnifred “Freddie” Kincaid has won a scholarship enabling her to write in Boston for a year. While working in the reading room of the Boston Public Library, and surreptitiously making notes about the three people around her, she hears a woman scream and, in the excitement, she and those three people - novelist Cain McLeod, law student Whit Metters, and psychology student, Marigold Anastas - bond. When a body is later found, the four start to investigate and as secrets get revealed, Freddie uses these characters and that plot for her novel.

But that’s not the meta part! There are also emails from a fan of Hannah Tigone - the novelist who is writing Freddie’s story. At first Leo gushes a lot and gives Hannah some tips on Boston geography and Americanisms - say “sweater” not “jumper.” But then Leo becomes more invested and starts making more overt, and creepy, suggestions (Stephen King’s Misery is referenced). Hannah has also included a Leo character in her novel, a fellow scholarship awardee staying in the same apartment building as Freddie, but the two don’t quite coalesce.

Leo raises a couple of good points which enables the author to deal with them without including them in her novel within a novel: Covid and race. The Freddie novel is set pre- or possible post- Covid which Leo finds infuriating: all those opportunities to use masks and civil unrest wasted! He also points out that the race of the characters, never specified so defaults to white, is important to an American and should be made explicit: if a character lives in Roxbury, they are likely to be Black which affects the way an American reader would perceive them. A bit of a weasel by Ms Gentill as she gets away without actually dealing with either point but ensures we know she is cognizant of them.

I actually found the Leo subplot to be more intriguing than the main mystery though it did fizzle out a bit. I also found it distracted me from what Freddie and co were up to, as I was anticipating Leo’s email at the end of every chapter. Additionally, it took me out of the flow of the mystery and definitely emphasized its fictional nature. Nonetheless there are some good twists in the Freddie novel and a satisfying resolution to both plots.

Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

“It’s part him, part me, part stuff I made up…The magic formula…”

And that is part of the reason I grabbed Sulari Gentill’s novel, The Woman In The Library. The other reasons, a library mystery, Boston, a town I have visited many times, and a murder. I love mystery/thrillers and I so wanted to love The Woman In The Library…but I found it was not for me.

I was confused about numerous things and the story never grabbed me. I was about a third of the way through and started skimming. I do not like to DNF books. I know authors put their blood, sweat, and tears into their work, so I always want to finish. It was a good thing that at 53% my curiosity arose. I wanted to know, who is the murderer. I thought of skipping to the end to find out, but held back.

Not every book works for me and I am sure that is the same for you and just because The Woman In The Library by Sulari Gentill was not my cup of tea, that doesn’t mean it won’t work for you.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of The Woman In The Library by Sulari Gentill.

See more at http://www.fundinmental.com

Libraries and murder and a story within a story, ooh la la! Some people love it, some people hate it. Which kind of person are you?

Four people happen to be sharing a table in the Boston Public Library when a scream breaks the silence. They later discover that a woman has been killed. They become friendly and work together to figure out whodunit. Was it one of them? Or someone else?

Despite all the fantastic reviews, this one just didn't do it for me. I had to force myself to keep going in the hopes that I'd see what everyone else is fawning about. But unfortunately, I never found it. I also thought the back and forth between the story and the letters was distracting and took away from the flow of the story. Overall, this book was...fine. I've just read much better.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I’m trying to decide where to start with my review of THE WOMAN IN THE LIBRARY, because this book is unlike anything I have ever read. If you think that Sulari Gentill broke the mould with her previous book, AFTER SHE WROTE HIM, then you will be thrilled to hear that she has done it again! The book within a book theme may not be new, but Gentill has added elements to it that were unique and clever and had me eagerly anticipating the course of action the story would take.

I am torn – on one hand I want to tell you all about the brilliant course this book took (call it a “twist” for lack of a better word), on the other hand I absolutely don’t want to give you any spoilers. When the moment came, I was so taken aback that I gasped loudly, waking my dog out of a deep sleep. So I am going to take the latter option and keep my mouth tightly zipped, even though I am dying to discuss it!

I can safely give away that the story features a book-within-a-book and correspondence from one of the author’s devout fans who is giving feedback on her novel as she is writing it. The story also contains a solid mystery that was fun to solve, so really it ticked all the boxes for me. But most of all, it was original and intriguing and made me grin a few times with that subtle Aussie humour that maybe only Aussies get, but which was refreshing and quirky.

Sorry folks, I am going to leave it at that! Let’s just says that THE WOMAN IN THE LIBRARY will appeal to readers who are looking for a mystery that transcends all the boundaries and breaks the mould of the sea of same-old books out there. When you get to the spot in the novel that I am (not) talking about, you will know, trust me! I enjoyed every minute of it and look forward to what crazy idea the author will cook up next.

WOW! I finished this book in less than twenty four hours. I absolutely loved the set up of the book, without giving too much away, it was a very creative way of storytelling. This novel kept me guessing until the very end, I was suspicious of every single one of them! Great thriller!

I loved the story within the story, it was an excellent and intelligent read. I really enjoyed the characters and the plots, this was the first time reading this author’s work and I would highly recommend it. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, I would definitely recommend this novel!