I’m halfway through Michael Connelly’s Nightshade, which I’m enjoying, but I’m mad I missed my galley of Mary Anna Evans’ The Dark Library. I’ve known Mary Anna for twenty-two years, and I was looking forward to reading the galley through NetGalley. But, I went to download it today, and I missed it. It’s not released until June 24, but Poisoned Pen Press pulled it early from NetGalley. Now, I’m on the waiting list at the the library.

I’m going to tempt you with this gothic mystery, though, even though I haven’t yet read it. Here’s the summary.

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.

That’s okay. I’ll read it with anyone else interested in a new gothic.