I found the story to be interesting, but ultimately I wanted a little more. The story could have used some more pages to fully finish the story. The ending felt out of nowhere, but I did enjoy the world.

Thank you Macmillan Audio for the ARC of The Graveyard Shift in exchange for an honest review 🪦🐀

⭐⭐⭐

Release Date: September 24th


Multiple POV Horror novella following 5 people who periodically meet up at an abandoned church's graveyard for a smoke break. A mysterious hole is discovered in the graveyard and as the group split up two stay behind and happen to discover the gravedigger... Throughout the night you follow different POVs to discover who the gravedigger is, what he is burying, and why.


2.7 rounded up. Fun, fast read! Loved the premise of the story and M.L. Rio is great at world building in a short amount of time, but it fell a little short of the spooky book I was hoping for. There are a few animal horror scenes and following multiple povs kept it engaging enough but the audio of some of our characters felt monotoned, while others felt too cheery for a horror.

This was a very solid novella. I had a great time listening to the audiobook and can’t wait to get my hands on a physical copy when it comes out. My only qualm was it felt like maybe there were too many people for such a little space. I happily would have either read MORE about each of them, OR I would have been more invested in sticking with a select pairing of the group. This is definitely a story though I will happily be revisiting, rereading and listening to again.

I loved If We Were Villians, so I was excited to be able to listen to an early listening copy of Graveyard Shift. It did not disappoint, and the audiobook was a full cast. Definitely recommend. 4.25 stars

3.75 ⭐️

thank you Macmillan Audio for this advanced listener copy!!)

1 sentence review: a short & sweet sci-fi/horror novella that leaves you questioning everything!

This was a short little story that I finished in basically 1 sitting!! I loved the team of night owls, or the “insomniac support group” as the author called them, that stayed up all night to solve the “case”. This reminded me of my group of friends in college and I loved how they each had their own role to play!

My only downfall with this book, and most novellas in general honestly, is that a lot of the information is left undeveloped. I was left with more questions than answers, but I think this was done on purpose in this case!

Overall, I think this is a fun and quick read, perfect for spooky season!

There was also a playlist and cocktail recipes at the end of the book, so bonus points for that!!!😋

Audio Rating: 5 ⭐️ a full cast!!!

Read This if You Like:
🐀 Ottessa Moshfegh’s writing style
🪦 Spooky novellas
🥃 Ambiguous endings

I enjoyed this book, the characters were great. A few twists and turns kept my interest. The ending was not what I was expecting.

I really liked the full cast of narrators for this audiobook novella. The dark and mysterious atmosphere was compelling. I was left slightly disappointed by the ending -- I don't really mind that it is sort of vague, but I wish we'd gotten more tension and repercussions. As the story takes place over one night (one "graveyard shift"), the short timeline makes sense, but since I was enjoying the setting, situation, and character development, I wanted more.

Thanks NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced copy of this audiobook.

This book was hit and miss for me. It started off kind of boring and the in the middle I was starting to gain interest and then at the end I was bored again. I feel very neutral about this story. I wasn't bothered reading but doesn't leave me craving a full story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Flatiron Books/Macmillan Audio for this one. I received the audio, of which there were multiple narrators, each doing a different POV that kind of felt like Scooby Doo to me (for adults, and in a good way). This is a first for me from the author.

This is a novella that features a ragtag group of late night smokers that meet every night in the local cemetery. At the beginning of the story, which atmospherically takes place in October, they stumble upon a hole in the ground that was definitely not there before! They think that this digger may be linked to other strangenesses around town.

Unfortunately for me, while I did enjoy each of the characters and their differences, the paraphrase of the blurb above is just about as deep and descriptive as the novella as a whole. While I’m still kind of in the middle on this one, as there were several things I did enjoy, this just read like an introduction, not a story. There’s more development of the characters as they are introduced in the switching POV than there is in the development of the story itself.

They chase a suspect of the digging, which you’d think would be this giant reveal, but it just kind of happened before petering out. Then they were onto the next thing. Which is what left me hanging, because the atmosphere is palpable during the scene. And the scene that involves a certain rat was a highlight for me, creepy, dark, eerily toothy, but even though it does tie into the overall arc, it just needed more for me to sink my teeth into.

I really like the cover, and as both rats and fungus are kind of topical for the FanFiAddict crew, I wanted to feel like this was a hit. I don’t want to bring in any spoilers here, but the ending felt rushed, underdeveloped in the sense that it’s just handed to you and it’s over.

This book has so many layers and is such a deliciously spooky read. Perfect for fall, lovers of What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher will find a perfectly thrilling story here. A group of insomniacs stumble upon a mystery in their chosen haunt of a graveyard in the middle of the night. Follow them as the mystery unfolds in this must-read gothic novel.

Great vibes and interesting plot but the book ends as soon as it starts getting really good, which was a total bummer! I really don't like when novellas read like an incomplete story, especially when it is released as a single novella like this. I'd love a longer version that continues where this stops and builds on the characters more, but as is it was a very unsatisfying read for me.

Thanks so much to Netgalley & Macmillan audio for the alc!

I really enjoyed this novella!

I enjoyed the multiple characters and how the whole thing took place in one night. It was creepy at times but I enjoyed the peek into what it must be like to not be able to sleep and how disorienting that might be.

The only downside is that I wish the story was a little longer, I feel like the characters could have been better developed with about 100 more pages but it was intended as a novella and I think it works.

✨️Review: The Night Shift by M.L. Rio✨️

Rating: 3.50 🌙's

Overview: When the Night Shift smokers club from a nearby college suddenly finds theirselves thrown into a mystery of medical research mystery.

Thoughts: This book was a little slow toward the beginning and I felt like it dragged a bit. That's because they wanted to introduce everyone all at once and try to give them personalities to help the plot. I feel like this could have been done more through flashbacks instead of putting it all into one lump at the beginning. However the plot does pick up and I started to be pulled in and the mystery and medical science of it all captivated me.


Possible spoiler: I used to be a pharmacy tech and I enjoyed the pharmacology aspect.

Very twisted and detailed. Each chapter is a different POV. All of it takes place over one night. Leaves you wondering the final outcome and how we got there.

Objectively, this is an intriguing story and I do enjoy the writing style. I do see the appeal and believe I would’ve enjoyed this more if: 1) it didn’t end so abruptly 2) it was a bit spookier. I was expecting to be scared but I was more intrigued than scared. I probably would’ve DNF’d if it weren’t so short, but I also wanted to stick around to the end to see how it ended. Overall I’m conflicted. I’d recommend it but it wasn’t for me. I’ll give the story alone 3 stars.

However, the audio performance was excellent and that deserves 5 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley I was able to listen to a copy of Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio. I must say I do not read novellas often and I remember why I do not. I really do not have a strong love or hate for this novella. The subject matter was interesting and that is what caught my eye in the first place. The audio was well done though with all the different characters.

Thank you, NetGalley for this advanced readers copy of Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio!

I wanted to like this Novella more than I did. The writing was great and the atmosphere was spooky and dark (all things I was hoping for). But, the story itself was lacking. I might have DNF'd if I was reading the physical book.

The narration was great! I especially loved that each character had a unique voice.

3⭐️

Unfortunately this was a big miss for me. Personally I think this either should have been cut down to a short story, or better fleshed out and built into a full novel.

Also this is not the book’s fault since there’s a rat on the cover (but not in the description!), but I have a huge rodent phobia so I nearly DNFed.

Thanks NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this ALC in exchange for my honest review.

There were parts that were dark, gruesome, mysterious, gothic...and there were parts that were building up to something but would ultimately go nowhere because this is a novella and tis the nature of such things. We follow five people as they congregate for their late-night smoke break and the interesting turn the night takes after they notice a fresh grave in the defunct churchyard of the college. For a novella, it definitely made me ask questions and think quizzically about possible scenarios, which I love when books do. And the ending. Thumbs up.

This was a fun short listen. It was well narrated with a full cast and the story itself was interesting. It felt like an amalgamation of a few different works by a few different authors, but I don't think that was intentional. It felt like If We Were Villains in that there was a group of people working together but also sort of being nefarious. It did take me a minute to get into it, but once it got going, it was solid.