The Library After Dark by Ande Pliego

I went into a little reading slump after finishing Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett, so I decided to switch genres in a major way and see if that would get me back into the swing of things.

The Library After Dark was exactly what I needed.

A bookseller must escape the infamously haunted library that holds her darkest secrets, but with a murderer in her tour group, escaping alive is not as simple as it seems, in this twisty locked-room thriller from bestselling author of You Are Fatally Invited.

Not all fairytales were meant for children.

Aria Stokes is finally feeling settled—she lives in a tiny New York apartment, works as a bookseller at a local shop, and has even taken a leap of faith in love by indulging her attraction to bookstore regular Jasper. And he seems to already know her so well.

As a Valentine’s Day surprise, Jasper gets the two of them tickets to an exclusive, after-dark tour of the Daedalus Library—the grandiose establishment famed for its immersive genre-based reading rooms and, more notoriously, its rumored hauntings. While Aria normally loves all things ghastly, this place holds more dark secrets than she’d prefer Jasper to know. Like that the last time she was here, she left a body behind.

But when the automatic-door entry malfunctions and Aria, Jasper, and the five other people in their tour group become trapped in the library, they are forced to venture through the storied rooms and hidden passageways of the Daedalus in search of escape . . . and Aria quite literally has nowhere to hide from the shadows of her past. Then the group learns there’s a murderer in their midst.

Now, as she tries to break out of the library’s intricate reading rooms, Aria has to decide who she can trust—and what secrets are best kept buried—if she wants to make it out alive.

Summary via Goodreads

As usual with thrillers, I thought I knew what was going on in several different places of the book. I was wrong on all counts.

The plot is twisty, with a lot of red herrings, dragging you through a family’s sordid history while also taking you through a fun-house of horrors library that also seems like a book lover’s dream.

The entire concept of the library is amazing, with worldbuilding details to rival a fantasy. Every room had its unique features that came with its own atmosphere.

I appreciated the POV switches, and the fact that as bloody as some of the deaths (and there are plenty) the writing never went fully into the macabre. It was just enough to be thrilling, but not too much as to gross me out (other than the plain reality of how some of the deaths played out).

Aria was a cool character to open with and to follow through the story. While you get the other character’s POVs, it’s Aria who is the lynchpin for the story. While she did give off gothic cliché a little bit, she was still a fun character to get inside her head with, and the other characters played their own cliché roles to a T. It did seem like the characters were fulfilling an aesthetic stereotype on purpose, as they were all hiding something.

I do have to point out that the various ‘blade’, ‘knife’, ‘serrated edge’ metaphors were a lot, as in, there were many. Almost too much throughout the book to the point where it was noticeable. Other than that, the writing was visceral and fast-paced and for much of the story I had a clear picture of what was happening, which is important, considering all of the mechanics of how the library was set up.

I ended up reading this over a couple days, which is faster than usual, lately. I was intrigued by the story the whole time and desperately wanted to know the who, how, and why.

The ending was satisfying to me, as I’m not someone who enjoys a sad ending, though there are a lot of sad moment in the book. I won’t spoil it, but enough people die in the book to make you sigh with relief at those who survive.

And as to the final, real answer to the mystery: I was very surprised, and kind of delighted by the whole thing. Though it did make everything a little more sad.

I have a goal to read 100 books in a year and have decided to start fresh in June, hence 100 JunetoJune. This is book #3 for my challenge, and book #12 for this particular year. I’m moving a little slow, but I will no doubt be ramping up soon. Because I will be reading (hopefully) so many books, I may post more book reviews than my usual posting schedule allows. I generally post Mondays and Fridays, but you may see extra book review posts.

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