The Dark Library
A Novel
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4.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"Evans delivers an elaborate historical mystery...fans of gothic suspense will be delighted."—Publishers Weekly
"A fascinating and intelligent WWII home front story." —Rhys Bowen, New York Times bestselling author for The Physicists' Daughter
Can a family’s dark history repeat itself?
Estella Ecker has returned to Rockfall House, the last place on earth she wants to be. Years after she ran away from her overbearing father, she has been forced back home to walk in his footsteps, teaching at the college he dominated and living in the fabulous home where he entertained artists and scholars for decades—and perhaps she owns it now, because her mercurial mother has disappeared. At the center of everything—the whispers, the rumors, the secrets—is her father’s library of rare books, which she had been forbidden to touch while he was alive to stop her.
Everyone in town is watching Estella, with her dead father’s name on their lips, and no one seems to care about her missing mother. Who were her parents, really, and is the answer hidden somewhere in the depths of Rockfall House? And who will Estella be, if she gathers enough courage to find that answer? What she will discover is that no one can escape the secrets hidden in this dark library.
Suspenseful and unsettling but ultimately triumphant, The Dark Library by acclaimed author Mary Anna Evans is a compelling tale of mystery, family secrets, and the quest for truth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Evans (the Justin Byrne series) delivers an elaborate historical mystery set in 1942 New York. Estella "E." Ecker, 31, has reluctantly returned to her childhood home of Rockfall House, a Victorian mansion near the college town of Bentham-on-Hudson, after the disappearance of her mother and the sudden death of her father. Given her father's position as dean of Bentham College, E. has no trouble landing a job in the English department, though it barely pays her enough to keep up her crumbling ancestral home. As E. nurses hopes that her mother is alive and preparing to return home (despite the police's suspicion that she died by suicide), the new dean of Bentham College falls to his death from his office window, and the body of a long-dead young woman is found near Rockfall House. Suspecting that all of these developments might be connected, E. searches for clues in her father's rare book library while pursuing a romance with one of her colleagues. Evans stuffs the plot with incidents until it nearly bursts, but she mostly pulls it off, thanks to immersive historical detail and a gratifying dénouement. Fans of gothic suspense will be delighted.
