Today I’m sharing my review of The Library After Dark by Ande Pliego. I really enjoyed You Are Fatally Invited, so I was excited to pick up her sophomore novel. Thank you to Michael Joseph for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
This review originally appeared on The Nerd Daily.
In the centre of New York stands the city’s most notorious library.
It has a history of mysterious disappearances and freak accidents. But tonight, it opens its doors to welcome a group of strangers for an exclusive after-hours tour.
The famous author. The journalist. The professor. The bookseller. The architect.
They are here to see a legendary book – one of the most valuable in the world. But each visitor also has other, more sinister reasons for being in the library after dark.
As the tour takes them deeper into the building, one of the guests meets a gruesome, inexplicable end – and the others realise they are living on borrowed time.
The search for the murderer forces them to confront awful truths about themselves and decide which secrets are worth dying – or killing – to keep.
CW: death, murder, violence, gore, injury
My Thoughts:
The Library After Dark is a spell-binding read with darkness, gore and murder, just like the classic fairytales of yore.
After loving You Are Fatally Invited, I had very high expectations for this and it did not disappoint.
That concept is everything to me. I mean, a haunted library, bodies starting to stack up and fairytales that seem to mirror reality a little too close – that’s a combination you cannot let pass you by. Stories about stories, the publishing industry and the writing process are always fascinating to me and speak to that creative process which becomes intertwined with business endeavours and other factors. These fairytales are dark and Ande Pliego intersperses them within the narrative, both in the touches in the setting that honour them and the stories themselves. Certain theories and surprises come about in association with them too, which adds a new dimension to them and makes you want to reread to see what you may have missed the first time around. There is this blurred line between fantasy and reality, a liminal space where anything might just be possible. That magical realism element of this gave that Grimm fairytale touch to events which I thoroughly loved.
We begin in Aria’s perspective and instantly, she had my attention. She is this guarded person holding on to her secrets tight and unwilling to truly let others in. To have that romance come against those walls is endearing, but then everything is thrown by the surprise date at the Daedalus. Suddenly Aria cannot outrun her past and must confront the secrets she has buried deep. It’s an intriguing setup and you race through the pages to learn the truth. Luckily around Aria is a great cast of characters and this book has one of my favourite uses of multiple narrators I have seen for a little while. It does that classic trope of bringing you into each character’s perspective to share some of their secrets and let you glimpse the world through their eyes. It adds a different tension to this fateful night as you get this rich tapestry of people, relationships and dynamics that are not evident at first glance. What initially appears to be a random tour group ends up being so much more. I loved how unlikeable and complex these characters were at times. They are all there with their own motivations and history with these particular tales, but which of them is hiding the biggest secret of all?
The Daedalus is a fantastic setting. It is the library of your dreams with hidden passageways, beautifully intricate displays and enough books to fill a lifetime. Unfortunately it becomes a place of nightmares with blood spilt and some horrific scenes in store. There is something enchanting about a library at night and the childhood bookworm in us all dreamt of staying somewhere like that until the early hours, just reading in the peace and quiet. Pliego flips this on its head and creates an unsettling atmosphere that sends shivers down your spine. It is this Gothic space full of secrets and almost feels like a character in its own right, ready to defend its treasures to the hilt. From early on, this place has a mythos that is established within the story and you are questioning just how much of it is true. Pliego cleverly utilises this to further that liminal sense of this space and makes it feel tangible that there may be a literal haunting of the narrative at play.
The Library After Dark is a stellar sophomore novel that firmly places Ande Pliego on the map. If you’re not already a fan of her work, this will convince you and make you want to follow her career as it continues to unfold.
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