This is a smartly written, creatively plotted story, with misdirection and plenty of tension. The Woman in the Library captivated me from the beginning when the story opened in the Boston Public Library. Four strangers happen to be sitting next to each other when a Woman screams. It is this moment that is the catalyst for the story and their connection to each other. However, This is only one of the layers of the story. We learn that Hannah Tigone, a successful Australian a thriller writer, is writing the story of the four strangers. The creative way the two stories are connected was expertly done and made the story more intense at times. The story of the four strangers in richly written with detailed characters, twists and action, making it very fast paced. We learn little of the author, Hannah, however and yet her story is equally tense. The book provided a satisfying ending and I definitely didn’t see it coming.

Thank you Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the arc and the opportunity to review.

Pick this up if you're in the mood for a page-turner.

Best-selling Australian author Hannah receives letters from a fan, Leo, asking about what she's writing next and offering to be a beta-reader as her new work progresses, if she's interested.

Hannah apparently agrees since Leo lives in Boston where her next thriller is set, and we, as the readers are able to read her mystery-in-progress as Leo receives chapters from her: four young strangers become bonded after hearing a scream in the Boston Public Library and discovering that a woman was found dead in the library the next day. Can this newly formed Scooby gang figure out what happened?

Meanwhile, Leo's letters to Hannah contain commentary on her chapters, Boston, and his own novel.

As the book progresses, the fiction and the reality both become more intertwined and more sinister.

Very fun read.

Each of the characters has just enough idiosyncrasies and secrets to make them seem suspicious throughout, and the parallel stories add an extra layer both to the plot and to the reader's understanding of the writing and creative process.

Two thumbs up.

*language, sexual situations, violence

This was an unexpected murder mystery - that was not at all what I was expecting. Is that good or bad? I’m not really sure.

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.

So, when I read this synopsis I expected a locked room type mystery, but it turned out to be that in reverse. It also has a book, inside a book, inside a book - and as someone who loves books about books, I was super intrigued.

The characters are likeable but suspicious, the setting is well described and the chapters were short, interesting and left on cliff hangers.

The one sided letters from Leo to Hannah - at first were exciting to read but as I got closer to the end I found them more frustrating to read, as I just wanted to know what was happening in the other story.

All in all - this book was a good whodunnit mystery, good characters and a well thought out plot.

Thank you so much to NetGallery and Poisoned Pen Press for the arc ebook!

The Woman in the Library is a cleverly written mystery/thriller/ suspense story that grabs your attention from the scream in the library to the final page.

This book has it all: it is a story within a story, a locked but yet not locked room mystery and a group of 4 friends who bond at the library after hearing the infamous scream.

Who is the murderer?

Its more than that as the story unfurls.

There are twists and turns in the cleverly plotted book that will keep the pages turning and the lights on.

I don't want to give anything away so I will just say make sure you get your copy of The Women in the Library and put it at the top of your TBR pile.

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for a captivating read.

2.5/5
Unfortunately this book did not work for me. I was not a fan of the metacommentary the author included throughout the novel. Points were often overexplained, as if the author thought the readers could not figure out what she wanted us to understand.
The relationships in the book seemed very forced – I could not understand why the group’s friendship formed or why they continued to hang out after the initial point of contact.
The ending of the book was very rushed and because of this I felt really unsatisfied by the way things ended.

I did enjoy the unique way the story was written. The book is written as a story within a story – Hannah Tigone is sending her manuscript through email to a fan and he is giving her insight and notes on the writing. The manuscript is the chapters of the book that we are reading, and his emails are listed at the end of each chapter. I’ve never read a book like this, and I thought it was a unique and really interesting concept!

Thank you to NetGalley, Poisoned Pen Press, and Sulari Gentill for the eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Woman in the library was such a great read!

The premise of this story is an author corresponding with someone who reads her chapters as she sends them, and critiques or gives details of the places the author could use within each to make it seem more realistic.

The basis of the authors novel is a woman in the library trying to write a book and she’s noting the characteristics of those around her when they all hear someone scream. This begins a strange and fascinating friendship between the four of them.

As you get deeper into the book it becomes much more a thriller, suspense, mystery story and is very interesting to read. The details of the story and the email correspondence between her critique/friend and others gives this book so much depth.

I definitely think if you enjoy mystery thrillers then you should check this book out!

It was a really good read

‘And so we go to the Map Room to found a friendship, and I have my first coffee with a killer.’

Wow, I absolutely devoured this book! The narrative is split into two parts. Each chapter is the latest part of the mystery of the woman in the library written by a popular Australian author, Hannah Tigone. Four students find themselves in the library’s reading room when they hear a scream, after the body is found Winifred realises that one of them must be the killer. At the end of each chapter there’s a letter from Leo, an American fan of Hannah Tigone who writes to her to give her notes as she finishes each section.

There was an underlying tension throughout the whole book, not only are you trying to work out what happened to the woman in the library but Leo’s letters become increasingly odd. I really liked how we flipped from Hannah’s book to her correspondence with Leo, it felt exciting and kept me wanting to read on. Hannah’s book was interesting enough in itself, I really appreciated the dark academia vibes that reminded me of ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt. The pacing of the book felt right, the revelations came at the right time to keep it moving. The writing style was great, it was detailed and descriptive without slowing the pace down too much.
This just felt different to a lot of mystery thrillers I’ve read recently. I was genuinely excited to see how it would be resolved and it could have plausibly been any of the four students. This was a joy to read and I look forward to picking up more from this author!

✨Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an eARC of this book! ✨

I would like to thank Poisoned pen press and Netgalley for giving me this arc in exchange for an honest review.
This story has one of the most interesting formats I've ever read. Initially this seems to be about an Australian writer in Boston who is in the reading room with four strangers in a library when they hear a scream. The next morning a dead body is found but then we find out that this is actually a story being written by an author named Hannah and she's sharing drafts of her story with a fellow writer named Leo. As the mystery in the drafts of the novel sent to Leo are being unfolded we learn that there is something quite sinister happening with the writer Leo. Overall I thought that the story was good and tye mystery in both stories were interesting enough

A multi-layered mystery that’s consistently entertaining! There are four people communed in the Boston Public Library’s reading room bonded by a blood-curdling scream that’s actually a book within a book framed by a fan’s letters to the author. Lots of secrets that are revealed timely to ensure perfect pacing. Gentill’s novel is a bit unconventional, which I found delightful and refreshingly fun.

I graciously received an advance copy from NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press in exchange for an honest review.

A story within a story about a story? Yes please! This type of thing can be confusing but it actually worked for this one and I couldn’t wait to find out what happened in all of them. I wasn’t sure when I started but it hooked me quickly and I enjoyed it all the way to the end. Thanks to net Galley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I devoured this book.
This was such an interesting and unique read, you really have yo go at it from a different perspective.
After the first chapter you understand what is happening a bit better and it was genuinely difficult to put down.

DNF - I didn't like the writing style for this, at all. The manuscript reads as being satirical & perhaps that was the point but I struggled immensely to reach the 5% mark of this book as I clocked Leo as an antagonist from his one-way letter writing, bizarre obsession with Hannah, whom we don't hear from, & his overall demeanour in a single letter--this does not bode as very promising for an entire novel in which his participation as a villain of sorts is meant to be revealed much later in the book.
The writing style as a whole very enormously disjointed & dull. It did not request me to care about anyone. Hannah herself is a shadow figure whom I am to get to know through the obsessive writings of a person who can't properly construct an email to save their life.
Every character in the manuscript read as a caricature with no depth or personality whatsoever. Everything felt tiresome & this was before the 5% mark which resulted in me making the decision to not pursue my reading. Had another author actually written the emails or been the person to write the manuscript we might see the difference in tonality that Gentill was attempting to adopt. I am not trying to say that this is something that is easily done but, it can be aided by the influence of another - someone whose tone you don't have to adopt yourself but who can write at their leisure, as usual.

HERE it is, the book I have been waiting for, my first 5-star read of the year. After a couple of middling 3-star rom-coms (and I love rom-coms), I found The Woman in the Library.

Or, perhaps, like our protagonist Freddie's muse, it found me. This novel is Agatha Christie with a nod to Shakespeare's book within a book plot device and it immediately draws the reader in.

So, too, were our four main suspects drawn to one another by a fateful scream at the Boston Public Library. Freddie, newly arrived from Australia on a writing scholarship, quickly takes to Cain, Whit and Marigold. She believes them all to be strangers, but more ties the others together than a woman's scream. When it's discovered that a body of a young woman was found at the library, the connections grow - and so does the chance that one, or all, of them are in danger.

The reader soon discovers that the characters in this book belong to mystery writer Hannah Tigone, who is sending chapters to a fan, Leo. As Leo's communication becomes more and more worrisome, we start to wonder about Hannah's safety as well.

The focus of the novel remains mostly on Freddie as she falls in love with one of the group and tries to clear that person of murder. There is some suspension of disbelief here - would a mystery writer get herself so involved in a real-life mystery?

Anything for the story.

Very well written. It took me a little while to catch on it was 2 mysteries for the price of one.

The letters threw me for a loop at first. The second letter made it clear it was a fellow writer, with feedback about a manuscript, Freddie’s story. The correspondance was done masterfully, becoming darker and darker, talking about the pandemic, racism (either the state of things or Leo’s feelings) and (sometimes gruesome) research.

As for the manuscript mystery, everyone becomes a suspect, except Freddie. As a reader, it was interesting to see how the first few letters from Leo played into who I thought had done it, since perhaps he knew where Hannah, the writer, was going with her story. And then chapter 18 happens and everything becomes even more muddled… it’s so well done!

My only question is… what is the point of Freddie’s neighbour Leo? He shows up randomly… but who is he really and why is he at the hospital?

There's so much I want to say about this book but I am going to try to keep this spoiler-free.

To begin with, I really enjoyed this. I had to put it down because life was intervening but it kept circulating in my mind and that was a very good thing. Told in two paths (one, the titular story being written by an author and the second, the correspondence of her beta reader reacting to said story with commentary and suggestions) and that made for an interesting read. It's like Inception with Gentil writing a story about an author writing a story with the author's real-life playing out via the beta reader. It's such an interesting way to tell a story and I just loved it. Now I have to admit that I did feel at times that the story of The Woman In the Library felt like a tertiary story because so much else was happening to the characters that didn't seem too related to solving the murder. As that's what drew me in to read this, to begin with, I was a little disappointed at some points. But, this was always a very engaging read. The beta reader thread upped the level of "Wait... what?!" and then it was just a story that would not let go of my attention.

Finally, I stayed up one evening determined to finish because I couldn't stand not knowing how it would all end. It was completely worth it. It should also one said that there were so many questions brought up in the book that was worth thinking about. Whether an author should or shouldn't reference the Covid pandemic or not (I still don't know but I appreciate this is a difficult thing for authors at the moment. It made me think about what authors did during/past the Spanish Influenza.

Also, should authors state character race/ethnicity or just ignore it altogether? I enjoyed reading the perspectives and it's definitely one that has me thinking. As a biracial POC, I don't assume white characters unless told otherwise when I read but realize that others may. The discussion around not being explicit about it robs the character of complete characterization was an interesting one. It's an argument I've read about regarding Bridgerton and while I haven't watched it, I've seen tons of clips of it and can see the points of the various arguments. I loved seeing that here and having the opportunity to think about it in the context of this story. I have to admit that one of the possible clues the in-story author gives for a character flew completely over my head because I knew nothing about the location given about where the character was living. If it was indeed a clue it was an oblique one, at least to me which adds another layer to the discussion of declaring upfront.

Finally, the mystery solution was great and so well done, that I couldn't have asked for more. It was exciting to the last. I have to admit though my favourite character was Mrs.Weinbaum and I think she should have her own story because she must lead a damned interesting life and in turn makes the lives of her attorneys so exciting though perhaps they'd choose a different word.

So I recommend this. Highly. I have some of Gentill's classic mysteries in my TBR and will be getting to those sooner than later now. She knows how to tell a story. Read this if you get the chance.

Many thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for the Advance Reader's Copy.

The idea of this book was great and I thought I would love it! I like stories within stories. Sadly, this book did not work for me and It fell flat. It was a tedious read and I had to fight through to finish. It took me some time to get used to the different narrators and viewpoints. I did like Leo’s letters though the best. I am giving this book 2 stars because of the premise of the story.

Thank you to NetGalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review. This review is completely my own and is my honest thoughts and opinions.

A complicated mystery, a tale of murder, misdirection, suspicious characters, and confusion. Set in a library reading room, four young would-be authors start a friendship when a scream is heard, and a body is found. Unraveling all the possibilities is compelling and mind-boggling. A puzzle. I liked it.

This was so good, a crime thriller in the old fashioned Agatha Christie style with a fabulous twist. I intended to only read a bit but found myself unable to stop until I had finished. Best book I have read in ages.

The Woman in the Library was a fun read. The framing devise of have a a reader’s feedback after each chapter was a clever approach and felt very meta. It was particularly enjoyable to see how Leo’s feedback began to shift and become more aggressive over time. The letter also allowed for a terrific way to address the pandemic but also not acknowledge it. At least that was my take on it even if Leo disagreed! The main mystery itself was successful in its own right and did keep me guessing until the end.

What a who done it.. A novel inside a novel which I myself did not see coming. Four young people a few writers are in the Boston Public Library when and terrible scream turns them into to friends. Friends that lead them on a path of murder, lies, and uncertainty.
Winifred Kincaid or Freddie to her friends is a writer from Australia who is in Boston on a scholarship for writing. While in the reading room she meets Marigold Anastas a psych student, whit Metters a law student and Cain McLeod a published writer.. Then comes the scream that changes things for the four. Where did it come from and who is the victim.? This murder leads these four on a path to friendship but not the kind you would want. Can one of them be the murderer.
As we read on we find out that this woman had a history with one of these people so we start off with the mystery of why?
What I like about this novel is that it's a two in one story Not only are you trying to figure out who killed this young women but but of Leo who is writing to his favorite author Hannah Tigone. We see how Leo who you believe is another aspiring writer and a fan of Ms. Tigone reads chapters of her next book and gives her his ideas of how she can change things. You see as you read how Leo changes towards Hannah. So here is your next mystery.Once you read Leo's emails to Hannah you are then taken back to Boston and what is happening with that murder. How does the friendship change with these four as more truths come out about how one of them if not more are connected to this murder . I like the twists and turns this novel took that brought us to the end. Love the character of Freddie and how she changes from chapter to chapter. She will stop at nothing to find out the truth. She had grown into a fearless fighter for the truth. You also some racial overtones. Especially between Leo and Hannah. His tone changes when race is brought up and also how he touches on the pandemic.and how it is affecting him.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes a story withing a story. A mystery within a mystery with some funny undertones. I wish the ending had a little more to it. I felt it was a little flat, but that is just me. I would give this 4.5 stars because I love the mysteries and how this novel was written. Thank you Poisioned Pen Press and NetGalley for this ARC. I will look forward to Sulari Gentill's next novel.