Review - The Dark Library by Mary Anna Evans

Title: The Dark Library*

Author: Mary Anna Evans

Rating: 3.25 stars / 5 stars

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Favorite Quote: “It had never occurred to me how universal the men in my life had been in their belief that I was, at rock bottom, not a capable person.” Evans, Mary Anna. The Dark Library. Poisoned Pen Press, e-book ed., 2025.

Review: Thank you to the Netgalley platform and the publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, for the free e-ARC I received in exchange for this honest review.

The Dark Library follows E, a struggling associate professor in WWII New York, trying to manage her family’s crumbling estate while also trying to solve the mysteries of the dean’s untimely suicide, her mother’s disappearance, and the strange happenings the hills and late surrounding her house.

Let’s start off with what’s working - this book masterfully addresses the gender disparities faced back in the WWII era that are hauntingly relevant even today. E has an Ivy League education and is still relegated to a barely-office where her job seems to hinge on most men currently off at war, rather than on the merit of her work. She also (almost) falls prey to a man who has held a position of power over her family who seeks to marry her. Women having to work twice as hard for half the credit? Men trying to take advantage of women at their most vulnerable? Unfortunately not the historic portion of this work of historical fiction. 

The book also captures the many complexities of adult children reckoning with behaviors of their parents - the parents’ own flaws and shortcomings that shaped the adult child’s life. 

In other words, Evans is a master at character development. 

Plot development and pacing, however, are a bit of a shortcoming in this novel. The dean’s suicide occurs within the first few pages. And then the book detours into a hunt to find E’s mother at an asylum. And then there are hints that someone is stalking the house and maybe breaking in, but E can’t figure out who. And then there are chapters dedicated to an upcoming party, where the party itself takes up little time, but during it, a bunch of seemingly unrelated secrets are revealed. And somehow during that time E (somehow) determines her father may have stolen military secrets during the first World War, a visiting professor is actually an enemy trying to get those secrets, the dean committed suicide because he may have killed a young woman he was having sex with (perhaps against her will - certainly based on an unbalanced power dynamic), half the town are Nazi’s or Klansmembers (or both), and also E’s potential lover is also working for the military, albeit for the US instead of the enemy. Oh, and also she determines that the lawyer trying to marry her is actually after her family’s wealth that he’s used other people to convince her doesn’t exist. 

Almost all of these revelations happen within the last 10% or so of the book, and occur with very little explanation as to how E gets from point A to point C. Point B just doesn’t seem to exist. 

The characters were great. The plot…could have used some work. 

About that Quote: Many quotes about the gender disparities hit home even decades after the setting of this book. This is just one of many.

Incomplete list of TWs: Nazis, KKK, SA, Murder, DV