What an entirely different story than I expected. I will admit that the beginning was confusing for me. It was a story about a story in a story. BUT, as the book went on I found myself more invested that I anticipated. At about the 60% mark I was hooked and needed to see where this was going.

We start with Hannah, an author, who is writing a book. She is sending each chapter to a guy named Leo, who then provides feedback. I will be honest, I never really did come to a conclusion as to what Leo had to do with anything? But it made for an interesting concept.

I guess I would say the main characters are the people within Hannahs story. Four strangers meet at the Boston Public Library when a girl's scream disrupts the quiet. The four people find themselves discussing the scream and quickly become friends. When the girl in the library ends up dead, at least three of them will find themselves suspects. As the story unfolds, you will find yourself questioning everyone and everything.

I was shocked by the ending, I definitely did not solve the murder. I am giving 3.5 stars based solely on the fact that I never understood the reason for Leo's character and I would have liked that to come full circle a little tidier. But overall, it made for an interesting read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisned Penn Press for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC of this book!

The Woman in the Library is a thoroughly entertaining read. A story within a story, with many layers of twists and turns. The characters were well developed and held my interest. I didn’t want to put this book down once I had started reading.

*I would like to thank Net Galley and Poisoned Pen press for the chance to read this book as an ARC.*

The premise of this story was so interesting. It is basically a story within a story within a story.
The main focus is this manuscript that a famous writer, Hannah Tigone is writing. Her story follows our main character Freddie (who is also writing a novel) and three other people who bonded over a traumatic event - a woman’s scream in the Boston Public Library. From there we follow the aftermath of this event - them navigating this new friendship, trying to go past this event and figure out what happened. At the end of every chapter of this manuscript we have a correspondence between our writer Hanna and her friend who is helping her write her novel.

The whole concept was so interesting, it’s like inception. The mystery was engaging and really interesting, but the ending is where it fell flat for me. When it comes to thrillers and mysteries I expect them to shock me and blow my mind, but as I guessed the ending, kind of, it didn’t really work for me.

I really loved that the author (Sulari Gentill, I feel the need to clarify with the whole inception vibe 😂) through Hannah challenged and explored some interesting and important topics when it comes to decisions the writers have to make when crafting a novel today. I especially loved that we got a glimpse into what needs to be researched and taken into an account when writing an creating a work of fiction that is authentic and believable.

Thanks to Poison Pen Press for providing me with an ARC for an honest review
A great book!! Definitely will be reading more from this author.
The way that this book managed to give two stories at the same time and not confuse me was outstanding. Really loved how the story progressed and everything was resolved in a really nice way. Although I was not really fond of the main character didn’t really liked how she didn’t listened to her friends. The plot twist towards the end was fantastical, a book has never make me gasp like this one did.

Good story, well written. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill 📚

This is a book about a writer writing a book about a writer writing a book and it’s set in a library. It’s a literary inception! 🤯

Hannah Tigone, a successful Australian author, is writing a book set in Boston. Because of Covid she can’t travel to Boston to do her own research, so as she writes each chapter she sends it to Leo, an acquaintance that lives there so that he can help her with details about the city and Boston slang. We don’t really get to know too much about her because we only read Leo's letters.

The main story of The Woman in the Library is the book that Hannah is writing:

Winifred Kincaid (Freddie) is an Australian writer. Thanks to a scholarship she won, she moved to Boston to write a book. One night, Freddie decides to go to the Boston Public Library to write her mystery novel and get ideas for her characters. She’s sitting at a table in the reading room with three other strangers when they all hear a frightening scream and later a woman is found dead. The four of them get together and end up staying late talking about what happened and exchanging numbers in case they need an alibi. In a matter of days they become close friends but as the plot develops, strange and creepy things keep happening to them and they realize that they don’t really know each other that well.

As Hannah keeps writing her story, she notices that Leo’s behavior starts changing and that she doesn’t really know him either.

Everyone is a suspect in this unputdownable and mind-blowing story! The format of the book is so refreshing; I can’t even remember reading anything like it. I was so intrigued I just wanted to keep reading both storylines at the same time. The author did a great job wrapping up both of the stories perfectly. Plus, the book is set in my favorite library and one of my favorite places in the whole world, the @bplboston , where I’ve spent hours reading and studying.

Do yourself a favor and read this cleverly written story within a story that comes out on June 7. Thank you Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the gifted ARC.

Four people meet in the Boston Public Library meeting room and an ear-piercing scream turns their world upside down. One Aussie writer, one former prisoner/writer, a spoiled law student and a certified genius are all trying to figure out how who killed the woman in the library. As they strike up a tentative friendship, they each begin to question each other and their motives. One is a killer and three are innocent. Will they figure out who the murderer is before one of them becomes the next victim?

This frame story had a lot of potential, but fell a little flat for me. The story within a story of a fiction writer writing about a fiction writer, just made the plot line more muddled. I think Sulari Gentill would have been better off with the inner story and dropping the outer plot line—just my personal opinion. Each of the inner characters were well written and fully developed, but the frame story just didn’t work for me and only detracted from the mystery.

Thank you to NetGalley, Poisoned Pen Press, and Sulari Gentill for the advanced copy. The Woman in the Library is out next Tuesday. All opinions are my own.

Loved this book and am thrilled to have discovered author Sulari Gentill. Her website quote perfectly sums her up:

....tells stories...it's outrageous...she just makes things up...

The plot construction of this book is very creative - a story within a story within a story. Hannah, an Australian writer, is writing a mystery set in Boston based on a chance meeting of four people in the Boston Library. The author's alter ego, Freddie, is in Boston on a writing fellowship, and is the first person narrator of the book within the book. Meanwhile, Hannah has a "beta" reader named Leo to whom she sends her chapters as she writes them. Leo dutifully and creatively comments on each chapter with ideas and suggestions for moving the plot and characterizations forward, but as the chapters progress he gets increasingly obsessed and unhinged. Freddie, protagonist of Hannah's book, coincidentally also has a neighbor named Leo.

The plot is put in motion when the four characters in the library hear a scream and become fast friends, bonding over trying to figure out what happened and who might have killed the woman in the library. There are lots of twists and turns. Most of the chapters consist of sparkling dialogue between the various characters, interspersed with email suggestions from her reader, Leo.

I breezed through this in a couple of days and am sure it will be an immediate bestseller. Thanks to #NetGalley and #PoisonedPenPress for the advanced reader copy.

Four strangers meet in the reading room at Boston Public Library one fateful day when a woman in that very library is murdered. The four form a bond with each other but it starts to become apparent that one of them is perhaps the murderer. The twist? Well, you’ll just have to find out for yourself.
Thank you Netgalley, Sulari Gentill and Poisoned Pen Press for the opportunity to read and review this unique story. This was a book unlike any other I’ve ever read before. It was a little confusing at the start in the way the book was written. This was a book that I had been anticipating and very eager to read. Now that I’ve read it, I’m kind of on the fence about it. The story has a lot of potential, and the premise sounds intriguing but unfortunately the follow through just didn’t hit the mark for me. I think maybe there’s just too many ideas going on simultaneously. I’m rating this 3.75/5 ⭐️

In this mystery within a mystery, Hannah is writing a mystery book about a mystery writer writing a book and solving a murder. Confused? It's easier to follow than it sounds. Weirdly, the frame was modern sounding (and a bit more brutal) while the story inside the frame, which was Hannah's book, not Hannah's character's book, was a bit more cozy almost. The inner mystery was okay, but the outer frame made the whole thing exciting.

I thought this book was totally mesmerizing. I'm normally not a fan of books written in the epistolary formation, but this was only a letter at the end of every chapter. The form of the rest of the book allowed for enough interaction between the characters to keep me happy. Aside from the letters of a man writing to an author, the other part of the book is mostly the transcript of the author's book.

This book starts with a woman's terrified scream in the Boston Public Library that brings four patrons sitting silently at a table to immediate conversation and causes them to form an instantaneous bond of friendship. When later the body of a woman is found in the library, it sends the four on divergent and yet converging paths in trying to figure out exactly who killed the woman. Could it be one of them that is responsible?

This book was almost impossible for me to put down. It is different and entrancing. I loved it!

Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the gifted copy. All thoughts are my own.

4/5! This was such an exciting read and the suspense was super thrilling. I literally could not put it down. Each chapter was so riveting. Highly recommend for the dark academia vibe!

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for the digital ARC of ”The Woman in the Library.”

I found the first few chapters quite confusing but once I got my head around the 'story in a story' aspect of the book I thoroughly enjoyed it and would definitely recommend!

The woman in the library

First, thanks to @netgalley and the publishers for my e copy in exchange for my honest review.

And here it is. I liked it. It was a fast read and I appreciated that the format was different from what I’ve read before. Basically, it’s a story within a story within a story….

Sulari Gentill gave us two story lines to follow.

The first is letters between Hannah, a writer writing a mystery novel, and a fellow writer/fan, Leo, who is quite free with his advice and suggestions. As the story goes, the relationship gets a wee bit complicated. There are a few covid references that give credence to why she didn’t travel for research and was relying on Leo’s local knowledge but it felt a little forced and too soon (maybe for me it will always be too soon though). I kept waiting for it to connect with the other storyline and felt a little sad when it didn’t, more than the Leo’s reflections on each chapter.

The second is the book that the author is writing. An unlikely group, including a writer (see, story within a story within a story), brought together by their shared experience of being in the library when a murder is committed. They are not just each other’s alibis, they become friends. I was pretty sure I had the murderer pegged early on but the exploration of friendship and redemption kept me reading…and wanting to make sure I was right. I definitely appreciated this storyline more even though I would have liked more “thrill” to the thriller.

I’ve always wondered how an author puts together a story. Where do they get their ideas? What influences them (and who)? What’s the writing process? I enjoyed getting a bit of a glimpse into that world through both story lines.

The Woman in the Library is an interesting take on a story within a story. The exterior story is that of a mystery writer and their beta reader as the writer, Hannah, is handed more and more clues that not everything is how it seems with her friend as she sends Leo chapter by chapter her newest novel. The novel Hannah is working on tell the story of four strangers brought together by a scream they hear in the library. These four are bonded through the mystery of what they heard and the subsequent discovery of a body in the library. The novel within the novel follows the groups developing relationships and investigation as to what they may have witnessed.

I really enjoyed the twists and turns of the novel within the Woman in the Library. I found the distrust that sewn between the group at various times interesting and each of them had moments of motive and suspicion that moved the book along really well. Gentill played on the readers understanding of tropes and structure really well and it was a fun time. That said. I honestly couldn't stand the epistolary side of this book. I disliked Leo from the start of the book, which at times was the intent of the book, but his emails became sections I would have rather skipped. Had this novel just been one story, that of the murder in the library, I would have had an absolutely great time with this book. Instead, I slogged through half the story.

It was not that the plot of the epistolary wasn't compelling, because I loved the concept of what was happening with Hannah and Leo. I think Gentill pulled off a great idea in that portion of the book. It was that there was no point at which I enjoyed Leo as a narrator that soured me to that whole portion.

I tried to read this book 3 times to start. By the third time I had made it to chapter 7 before I finally decided this just was not for me. I gave it the old try, but the characters were 2 dimensional and the plot line was unbelievable.

Things I liked:
Interesting format
Decent characters
Insight in the process of an author


Things I didn’t like:
Advertised as a closed circle murder mystery, but really shouldn’t have been.
Separate storyline that wasn’t as interesting as the main one


There is quit in an ornate reading room within the Boston Public Library, that is until the tranquillity is shattered by a woman’s terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait, 4 strangers sitting at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reason for being in the reading room at that time—it just so happens that one of them is a murderer.

This synopsis sounded so intriguing that upon reading it, this book immediately made my top 10 most anticipated Q2 2022 releases. I absolutely adore closed circle murder mysteries, and from the synopsis it seemed like this one would be set in a library, another bonus for me. Unfortunately the synopsis is quite misleading in my opinion. It did not feel like a closed circle murder mystery, and unfortunately the library played only a small part in the actual story.

What I got instead was a story within a story within a story which could have been very interesting. Each chapter ends with a beta reader sending the author who’s writing a murder mystery tips and advice on the story. This makes it very clear that what you’re reading is fiction. At first it was interesting to see each chapter discussed right after reading it, but for me that got boring fast and it kept taking me out of the story. Now in the actual story we also follow an author, who’s also a murder mystery author, writing a murder mystery while being involved in a murder mystery herself. Are you confused yet? Because I definitely was at the start. Fortunately the author does a good job of keeping the threads separate, so while confusing at first, it does get cleared up pretty fast and doesn’t become convoluted.

The thing about multiple storylines however, is that you run the risk of 1 of those not being as interesting as the others, which is what happened here. I enjoyed following the 4 friends, while their characters felt a bit like stereotypes at time there was enough of a personality on them for me to enjoy. I also liked Winifred’s writing. I am a sucker for books about authors and seeing their processes so this immediately made me enjoy both Winifred and Cain a bit more.

Overall, while the formatting was unique, the mystery wasn’t. I can’t say I predicted the outcome but I am not surprised by it either. The biggest thing this book has going against it, is it being a forced closed circle murder mystery. There is no indication that 1 of the 4 people at the table is the murderer besides the author telling you that 1 of them is. If the author left that part out it could have been a more interesting mystery. There were a few side characters that were quite suspicious, but because the author, on multiple occasions told the reader 1 of the 4 is the murderer you can immediately disregard them as suspects.

What a delightfully metatextual examination of writing in the 21st century! With The Woman In The Library, Sulari Gentill has written a truly thought-provoking novel of what it means to write crime fiction in the present day, of what authors owe posterity and their readers in the on-going endeavor to create plausible stories that entertain while keeping at least one foot grounded in reality.

The core of this novel is the story of four people brought together by a hair-raising scream while they’re all seated in the Reading Room of the Boston Public Library. Our narrator, Freddie, is an Australian author who’s received a fellowship to research her next novel in the United States. She’s idly glancing over her fellow Reading Room occupants and giving them nicknames in her head when a scream rends the air. Forced to stay put while the authorities search the building, the foursome strike up a quick and easy friendship that also inspires Freddie to finally start writing her book:

QUOTE
The story is still coming in waves, surging ideas crashing onto the page faster than I can type. I’ve not yet found actual names for Handsome Man, Heroic Chin, and Freud Girl, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Perhaps it’s because I am not yet ready to diverge them from their inspiration, to stem that momentum of discovery, the excitement of new friendship that seems to form a story of itself. The narrative is strange–unlike anything I’ve written before. The library takes on a consciousness of its own, watchful, patient, dangerous. The scream becomes a motif, an echo of each character’s silent cry for connection and friendship, for help.
END QUOTE

Outside of Freddie’s head, Freud Girl is actually Marigold, a heavily tattooed psychology grad student who seems to be developing a crush on Heroic Chin, or Whit as he’s more commonly known. Whit is doing his best to flunk out of Harvard Law so that he won’t have to follow in his parents’ footsteps and join their law firm. Finally, Handsome Man is Cain, who is also a writer researching his next novel, depicting the life and death of a homeless man surviving on the cold Boston streets. As the foursome begin to build stronger relationships based on their initial rapport, they’re each excited to have found genuine new friends. Trouble is, one of them is a murderer.

As the story builds, we’re made aware that Freddie’s tale is actually a fiction created by the renowned Australian author Hannah Tigone. Further, while Hannah is stuck in pandemic lockdown in Australia, she’s in direct correspondence with a Bostonian fan who’s more than happy to help research her setting. Leo starts out friendly, if a little pushy, often offering unsolicited advice as he reads each of the chapters she sends. Some of this advice is actually quite canny, as when he’s talking with Hannah about race or about COVID-19 :

QUOTE
I notice that you have not once in this novel made any reference to the global pandemic. I understand of course. We’re all sick of it and all it entails. But I think it is the responsibility of writers to bear witness to the darkness as well as the light. Without any mention of the virus, your novel risks being dated before it’s released.

You could of course be setting this novel in the future, at a time when all this is behind us. But if you don’t mind me saying so, that’s exceedingly optimistic. I suspect that a world without disease will need to feature flying cars and victims dispatched by laser guns. Writing a contemporary novel without the pandemic is surely more fantasy than mystery.
END QUOTE

As Freddie’s story grows more and more complicated, so too does Hannah and Leo’s. The cat and mouse games played by the various characters lead to several thrilling surprises, and a tense, satisfying ending for Hannah and Leo’s story. I was a little less clear on what was signified by the end of Freddie’s tale, though I did think that the whodunnit overall was successfully executed.

Most of all, however, I found this to be a wonderfully nimble play on the relationships between writer and reader, and writer and muse. While Ms Gentill is perhaps best known for her terrific Rowland Sinclair historical mystery series, this standalone novel is an excellent addition to her canon, tackling complex literary issues with both wit and panache.

It's a very well-written book within a book with a wonderful epistolary element.... However, I didn't like the ending, and was rather disappointed by the killer's identity and their motives.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Woman in the Library follows two stories — one, a murder mystery novel in which four characters meet in the Boston Public Library’s Reading Room where a woman’s scream is heard, and then her body is later found; the other, a series of emails sent to the author of the murder mystery by her writing partner.

If there’s one thing I’m definitely Super Obsessed with, it’s the way this book successfully executed two rather fleshed out stories in less than 300 pages. I mean, what a feat! And both stories were equally riveting, and they constantly informed each other. Even if, at the end of the day, there were plenty of clues to lead the reader in the exact right direction to the resolution of the mystery of what happened to the woman in the library, knowing the resolution of the mystery was only part of what made this read interesting.

The narrative, though centered around the facts — or supposed facts — of this murder mystery is very character-driven, and I loved that! Particularly in the emails from Leo, as he had such a distinct (and irritating, to be honest!) voice. And the way he developed through the book… I still have goosebumps.

Seriously, this book is probably one of my favorites I’ve read so far this year. It’s far from perfect, but I can’t even bring myself to point out its imperfections because it was just such a fun, interesting, and unique experience.