A horror book that you don’t want to read at night… or in a a basement… or in a dark, creepy library … or in a suspected serial killer’s house.

This is a twisty novel with a lot of characters that the reader doesn’t know what their steaks in the game are at the beginning. It’s slowly revealed through ghost or not ghost and the murderer or not murderer. I enjoyed all of the lack of background so as backgrounds were revealed, it was interesting.

I think there were way too many POVs. I didn’t enjoy jumping into everyone’s heads. I thought the author did a good job with handling the shifts, I just didn’t enjoy it. I found the cast of characters too big for me to track everyone. And way too big for me to understand all the connections. There’s a lot going on in this story and I’m not sure if all angles were necessary or if removing a couple would simplify the book but still have the same impact.

I felt lied to one too many times and as a reader, I lost faith in my author to give me what I wanted out of the story. 

The horror aspect was super horror-ry. I did struggle reading it at night, which is a sure sign that the book is doing its job of scaring the shit out of readers. It was gruesome and graphic. Made me grossed out, look away and then have to keep reading.

So overall, a nice gruesome, large casted story in a twisty library that I’m not sure you can even call a standard library. 

Stats: 368 pages – First published May 5, 2026

**Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for a copy of the ARC in exchange for an honest review.