** spoiler alert ** I had such high hopes for this book. I used to work for an academic library with a special collections department, the vault, the rare books circa 1600s, all of it. The premise of the closed-door murder mystery in the library is great and could have made for a fascinating story, but this book did not deliver.
The writing is stilted and uneven, with weird turns of words and side stories that come up at the strangest times.

“She had a plan and decided it wasn’t impossible and in the end, it wasn’t.”

“I’m not sitting here and waiting to be hunted because, what, because my parents have a summer home?”

“Davey got himself a little dog. He was a Jack Russell terrier who Davie named Nero, and he was such a nightmare that Davie had to pay a roommate…” - why not say, “Davie got a little dog, Jack Russell, and named him Nero. The dog was such a nightmare, Davie had to pay a roommate…”

I digress. Some of it might get the final polish by the editors but I doubt they can get it all. At this point, it’s the author’s style, I suppose.

The writing seems most involved and interesting when the writer talks about the history and inner workings of the library.

Yet sapping up blood with pages of rare books is a scene that she also decided to write? How does it even make sense? Don’t they all wear clothes that would work much better as a makeshift bandage or cleaning cloth? And how did all these people who love the library all of a sudden become okay with the pointless destruction of priceless manuscripts?

Other WTH moments include but are not limited to:

- what kind of acid was it? They all just became cold-blooded killers?
- when a supposed killer is already in a small room that they just used to confine another supposed killer, why are they trying to open the door and get the “killer” out? Why not barricade the door again?
- no first aid was provided whatsoever, and no curiosity of “can we save this person?” Especially with the first death.
- the motivation behind the killings is flimsy at best
- The backstories are great, but they did not add anything in most cases.
- all characters are pathetic and unlikable.
- Faye is insufferable.
- Was there a ghost?
- the weird “I’m rich, and you are poor, is that why you want to kill me?” flex was reaching, even for a high person.
- they didn’t have to do Ariana Grande dirty like that.
- I don’t think I can eat corn now.

Thank you, NetGalley, for providing an early reader’s copy in exchange for my honest review.

Audience: Adult
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Keywords: Survival, libraries, college campuses, college students, murder mystery

I received an advanced readers copy of this book from Netgalley (Thank you Poisoned Pen Press)
This is a fast-paced psychological thriller that focuses on a group of college students who decide to spend a night locked in the basement of the academic library.

Inspired by the Eleusinian Mysteries from Greek Mythology, Davey sets out to recreate the ritual with 6 other people. The ritual includes fasting for 24 hours, taking drugs, and staying locked in the basement all night. When one of the members ends up dying, the group is quick to accuse each other, and the hunt for the killer begins.

This novel is told from all 7 POVs— and each chapter denotes who is speaking which is very helpful. Out of all the characters, my favorite character was Faye, whose fear of embarrassment prevented her from doing a lot of things, and because of that, she tried to keep her innocence throughout the novel, despite what happened. But since her experience, the reader saw how she transformed into a completely different person, which is reminiscent of a lot of horror films and books. The plot is fast-paced, and there are quite a few of flashbacks used to help explain the characters motivations which were helpful. Throughout the novel, there is quite a bit of violence and drug use depicted. There was a twist ending that I didn’t even foresee, and I was completely blown away.

I would recommend this book to anyone who may enjoy horror, suspense, and psychological thrillers.

This book was very interesting.I like the murder aspect of it. Everybody had a chapter and they explained why they were in this library at night before they were gonna graduate From college. Everybody had problems They all had a different story somewhere from the town of vor not. Dar VE1 was a librarian there.He was about to graduate. He set this ritual up because he liked books and he like rituals. This was interesting because they took a greek mythology in with this basement and they tied it all together. K I p was a Teacher assistant's getting ready to get his masters degree. You are Mau.Was student there in the college?Because her mother taught there and she was from the town. She had a friend named Roy who worked at Applebee's.And did not like the college smart People. S o r a y e what's the only black person in this group. Fl AY was the outsider because she never fit in with anybody. Mary was there as well. Murders took place in different parts of this basement library.And they also explained the history and how this college was built. Everybody did acid except For Mary and f l a y. Mary lied about taking it she did not. Things became really crazy when kip died. I'm ready for stripping and everybody excusing everybody everybody. It was interesting. How everybody died in this book? You'll find out and who The Only 2 survivors of this Crazy adventure..

This book is basically every librarian’s nightmare or at least this one’s nightmare. A murder taking place in the library. But what can I say it still kept me turning pages because I just had to know what happened. Even if I had to sleep with the light on for a few nights.

The night before graduation, seven students slip into the rare book library of their university to carry out a Greek rite that is supposed to release them from their fear of dying. They pick the closed library because of its perfect environment. The lights go out as they start, and one pupil passes away unexpectedly. Before they can start their new lives, the group must solve the riddle and figure out how to survive the night while trapped in the dark with a killer among them and nothing but books for protection.

I was captivated from the moment I read the synopsis of this academic-sounding mystery thriller. The idea offered the ideal balance of cerebral curiosity and tension. As soon as I read the summary of this mysterious thriller with an academic tone, I became engrossed. The concept provided just the right amount of tension and intellectual curiosity. Despite the book's virtues, the writing style.

This book had so much potential. I liked the concept, but there was something lacking. 7 college kids hide in the library overnight to perform a Greek ritual before they graduate and go their separate ways. Then one of them dies. They panic wondering which one of them is the killer as they continue to get picked off one by one. At one point, the death of one of them made me gasp and then laugh out loud (although I don’t think it was meant to be funny). I was sucked into the crazy for a bit once the story got going and I did think the ending was decent. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced reader’s copy.

I was very excited to dive in to this intriguing story. It had such a unique premise. However there were big issues that I couldn’t get past, and for me, the character development just wasn’t there. I did not get a chance to care anything about the characters before…BAM… murder. I still have so many questions that will never be answered. I felt that the pacing was off and everything went so fast.
I really really wanted to love this book but it just wasn’t for me.
To me, it was a 2.7 read but I will round up for the idea alone..

I was excited for this book because I wanted to know what would make these individuals want to stay overnight in a library? I got my answer soon enough and it wasn’t convincing. Why would a group of students that barely know each other agree to such an event? The reason never made sense and as the story moved along it became less and less believable. Learning more about each character made it even less likely this group of people would agree to this arrangement. The ending wasn’t really satisfying for me because I wasn’t a fan of the twist and thought the story was unconvincing.

Not much to say here. This story never took off. It took too long to get to any action. Then backstories kept interrupting. I didn’t actually read it all.

Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for letting me read this. I wish I had better things to say about it.

The premise of the book was an interesting one, a "ritual" mirroring that of the story of Demeter/Persephone, and an homage of sorts. A few graduate students that also happen to work in the local rare collections library find themselves invited to this ritual after-hours in the basement. The issues begin as soon as they start questioning each other's intentions and what they confuse the evening's purpose to be. I liked the characters and overall set up of the story. I am an avid reader and absolutely adore going to the library almost weekly, so I was interested in reading this book since it took place there. As I delved deeper into the book, I found that the book was dragging things out a bit and really wished that there was more substance to the story and that the reader could have known more about the history behind why the main character's and other's actions. This certainly has a great horror/thriller aspect to it, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I felt the ending was a bit rushed and didn't really tie up loose ends. However, I would still be interested in reading more from Eva Jurczyk and will look into her other work.

An intriguing premise that, unfortunately, fell apart in the middle. Other mystery lovers will certainly devour it.

I really enjoyed Jurczyk's first novel and was excited to read this new one. It is a different premise - a group of students who work in a rare books' library decide to do a Greek ritual at the end of the school year. The students are loosely acquainted but not fast friends. They sneak in at closing time and proceed to the basement for the ritual...where everything starts to go wrong. One by one, the students are picked off and we are left wondering who is the killer and what is going on.

I enjoyed it, not as much as the first one, and found myself not quite connecting with the characters. However it was a good read and I am happy I got to preview it.

Although the premise caught my attention immediately, unfortunately the book fell flat. I found it too slow paced, contrived and confusing with the numerous POVs, it felt like it needed more details in some areas (ie. actual sacrifice) and less character POVs. However I did appreciate the twist at the end but it was already too late to save the book for me. As well I did love the dark academia setting of a rare book library.

However, read this book if you like:
-slow burn
-multiple POVs
-dark academia
-locked room mystery
-Greek mythology
-rituals and sacrifices
-some twists and red herrings
-rare book conservation
-old library basement setting

My rating 2 1/2 stars out of 5

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this eARC that will be published June 11 2024.

Great sounding premise, not so great delivery. This one just didn’t do it for me. The description sounded great - students lock themselves in the library the night before graduation to perform a ritual and then start turning up dead - but so much time was spent trying to make these characters interesting that the actual action of it was lost during all the shifting POV. Usually shifting point of views can keep the reader off-guard, and allows the tension to build but unfortunately it just made this reader bored. And the final reveal ended up feeling like such a disappointment and didn’t really answer all the questions, so overall, I didn’t feel like my time was worth spending on this book. Other readers may enjoy it, but this one didn’t really connect with it.

I didn't know what to expect going into this story as I only picked it based on the word "library" in the title. Overall I found this to be a very intriguing and somewhat disturbing psychological thriller that showed how quickly a group of friends and acquaintances can fall into fear and chaos in one night. You can really feel the characters emotions reading through this book.

Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for my gifted copy.

I saw the negative reviews for this book, but I needed to read it for myself. I'm not sure where all the hate is coming from, because I enjoyed this one. Although predictable in the end, I found this one to be unputdownable.
I'm going to round up to 4⭐. It's thriller mixed with horror, and a sprinkle of dark humor. The book is 216 pages, and the pace was fast. For a locked room mystery, I thought this one was unique and a lot of fun.

Oh, I quite liked this. It took me by surprise and continually challenged my assumptions about the plot and the characters. I found it clever, well-paced, and deliciously dark. It's such a great blend of horror and thriller, and a little dark humour in there as well. This is a story I could picture being adapted for a movie. It had that vibe.

The author builds this up well with introducing each of the seven characters, all of which are different in personality and attitude. They were written well and believable. That buildup was compelling and had me on edge of the action to start. It's not a surprise for the first twist in the story, because it seemed fairly formulaic for the type of story, but each new twist was surprising and introduced more suspicion. In fact, bucket loads of suspicion. I didn't know who was going to turn out to be the culprit at end. This had me perplexed!

And the final twist. I loved it. So clever and so unexpected. It also seemed a bit tongue-in-cheek, but in a good way. It kind of felt like a reward by the end...maybe.

If I were to provide a negative, I would have enjoyed more detail on the ritual they were planning to do. It would have added to the dark atmosphere in the book.

All in all, this was pretty amazing, and I enjoyed the read. I had fun with the characters.

Link to video review to be added later.

That Night in the Library by Eva Jurczyk is about a group of college students who sneak into the basement of a rare books library just before graduation to perform a Greek ritual. Needless to say things go quite wrong and end up with several dead bodies.

Normally I enjoy locked room type books, but this one was off the mark for me. I felt like there was background and intro missing at the start of the story. I also didn’t love the idea of a ritual/sacrifice, and it was not explained so I was somewhat confused about it as well. I also found the end to be somewhat abrupt after all the buildup throughout the story.

I’m sure others may find this intriguing, but it just wasn’t for me!

I did enjoy this book it was a little hard keeping up with all the characters. I know there’s only 7 but it’s a lot of to keep up with especially in a locked door thriller. I loved the Greek mythology aspect of this book. This book did fall a little short in my opinion. I will say I’ll never visit a library after dark not that I ever did before lol

This book has a great premise but it didn’t flow very well for me. There are 7 POVs which are easy to follow but still felt disjointed. I didn't get sucked into the story like I thought I would. I did feel like the murder happened at a good point in the book though.

I did like the reading guide at the end to use with book clubs. I like that they explain their answers to the questions too. The writing is fine and the idea is an interesting one.