Book Review: The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

In every person’s story, there is something to hide...

Four strangers in the Reading Room at Boston Public Library are introduced by a scream. Caught up in the subsequent murder investigation, each one finds themselves revealing more than they intended about their pasts as they race to solve the murder before one of them gets hurt.

Whilst their stories unfold, so does another. Dear Hannah...

As correspondence between the author and an avid fan becomes interwoven with the core tale, the boundaries between what is fiction and what is real life begin to blur, highlighting the lengths people will go to keep their secrets.

Through these entwined narratives, Gentill delves into the complicated nature of friendships, the lives we show versus the lives we lead and the ways in which art can imitate life. Or perhaps it’s the other way around?

GENRE: D etective Fiction / Crime Fiction / Thriller

PURCHASE LINKS: A mazon

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sulari Gentill is an Australian author, also known under the pen name of S.D. Gentill. She was born in Sri Lanka and raised in Zambia and Brisbane, Australia.

After setting out to study astrophysics, graduating in law and then abandoning her legal career to write books, Sulari now grows French black truffles on her farm in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains of NSW. When the mood takes her, she paints, although she maintains that she does so only well enough to know that she should write. She is the author of The Rowland Sinclair Mysteries, historical crime fiction novels (ten in total) set in the 1930s about Rowland Sinclair, the gentleman artist-slash-amateur-detective.

Sulari’s work A Few Right Thinking Men has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Best First Book). She won the Davitt Award for the A Decline in Prophets, and the Ned Kelly Award for her most recent standalone novel, Crossing the Lines.

Under the name S.D. Gentill, Sulari also writes a fantasy adventure series called The Hero Trilogy. All three books in the trilogy, Chasing Odysseus, Trying War and The Blood of Wolves are out now.

Review & Recommended Listening

I've not read a lot of crime novels, let alone one that has a writer for a protagonist, but this was a surprisingly good read! The novel opens with a murder, which definitely draws you right in.

The novel's format is unique; in each chapter we get a "chapter" of a manuscript draft by an author named Hannah, with a corresponding feedback email by one of her fans and betareaders, Leo. Hannah's novel in turn also has a writer (Freddie) for a lead, so it's a little Inception-y (a novel within a novel) and quite meta especially for those of us who are also published authors 🤣 Plus there's a subplot with Hannah and Leo, and it also involves... you guessed it, murder.

Confused yet? Or perhaps intrigued? I did have a lot of fun and I couldn't put it down, so if you like crime mysteries and are willing to give writer-protagonists a chance, then you just might be pleasantly surprised. It didn't feel self-insert-y to me though there were certainly moments where I felt like I was being called out as a writer, haha!

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Recommended Listening: As I mentioned in my open call for books to review, I’ll now be adding a song to my reviews! It’ll be one that either sums up the book for me, what I’d imagine in a trailer were it a movie, something that I associate with the story or one of the characters for whatever reason… or maybe even an original inspired by it 😉