The Library After Dark: A Novel

by Ande Pliego

A bookseller must escape the infamously haunted library that holds her darkest secrets, but with a murderer in her tour group, escaping alive is not as simple as it seems, in this twisty locked-room thriller from bestselling author of You Are Fatally Invited.

He’s trying to dig up the skeletons in her closet. She’ll do anything to keep them buried.

Aria Stokes is finally feeling settled—she lives in a tiny New York apartment, works as a bookseller at a local shop, and has even taken a leap of faith in love by indulging her attraction to bookstore regular Jasper. And he seems to already know her so well.

As a Valentine’s Day surprise, Jasper gets the two of them tickets to an exclusive, after-dark tour of the Daedalus Library—the grandiose establishment famed for its immersive genre-based reading rooms and, more notoriously, its rumored hauntings. While Aria normally loves all things ghastly, this place holds more dark secrets than she’d prefer Jasper to know. Like that the last time she was here, she left a body behind.

But when the automatic-door entry malfunctions and Aria, Jasper, and the five other people in their tour group become trapped in the library, they are forced to venture through the storied rooms and hidden passageways of the Daedalus in search of escape . . . and Aria quite literally has nowhere to hide from the shadows of her past. Then the group learns there’s a murderer in their midst.

Now, as she tries to break out of the library’s intricate reading rooms, Aria has to decide who she can trust—and what secrets are best kept buried—if she wants to make it out alive.

Genres: Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Adult, Thriller, Horror, Books About Books, Fiction

368 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication May 5, 2026

About the author

Ande Pliego began writing stories when she discovered she could actually wield her overactive imagination for good. A lover of stories with teeth, she writes books involving mind games, dark humor, general murder and mayhem, and most importantly, finding the hope in the dark.

When not reading or writing, she can usually be found dabbling in art, scheming up her next trip, or making constant expeditions to the library. Born in Florida, raised in France, and having left footprints all over the globe, she is settled in the Pacific Northwest, USA, with her little son. Ande Pliego is the bestselling author of You Are Fatally Invited and The Library After Dark .

Reviews

[Melanie (meltotheany)]

out of all the 2026 synopses i've read, this one is my favorite :]

[Beka]

I need this book yesterday. I have absolutely NO TIME for ARCs though (my backlog is already like 3 years long - why am I like this) so I'll just be casually frothing at the mouth until May. :'-)

[Chrystal Schleyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love books and libraries and stories in stories, you’re going to LOVE this book. A fast-paced, stay up all night thriller that keeps you guessing! I loved Jasper’s character, and love the way Ande wrote Aria’s character growth! This was such a FUN, thrilling ride with all my favorite things!! I need a private, fancy library tour now—sans a killer.

[Tori · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved You Are Fatally Invited, but The Library After Dark is what officially adds Ande Pliego to my auto-read author list! It’s like The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (one of my favorite books of all time), House on Haunted Hill, and Clue had a baby. The mysterious patron with a wealth of familial secrets. The setting with its gothic atmosphere, eery fairytales, and deadly history. The guest list full of suspects — everyone is lying, everyone has a secret. The perfect recipe to keep me reading late into the night! Every time I thought I knew what the guests were hiding, there’d be another shocking reveal. This story is perfect for lovers of thrillers, books about books, and mysteries that keep you on your toes. Highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley, Bantam Books, Ballantine Books, and Random House for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

[Kelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ande Pliego is quickly becoming the queen of a locked room thriller! I loved this book!

The creepy and haunted library setting where no one is who they seem was perfection. I was fully engaged from the beginning and this book kept me guessing until the very end. I love a good plot twist and this book really delivered.

A super fun read and I can’t wait to see what else she puts out!

[Ryan Pote · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Twisty, atmospheric, and wickedly clever—The Library After Dark is Ande Pliego at her absolute sharpest. A locked-library bloodbath laced with dark romance and secrets that cut deeper than any blade; I devoured it in one breathless, brilliant sitting.”

[char !!]

need this arc approved coz Ande Pliego's first book was my first ever arc 🥲

[Elizabeth Edquist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ande Pliego does it again. From the very first page I was hooked and I couldn’t put this book down. I love multiple perspectives, especially in a thriller where you don’t know who to trust, and Pliego does that so well. Each character and voice is so unique. The twist at the end totally blew me away and I never saw it coming. Pliego has a way of distracting you from the truth with her prose and she reels you in only to completely surprise you. I also absolutely loved the fairytale element of this book. The stories really added an additional layer of mystery and magic. An easy five stars!

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Perhaps I'd just forgotten that fairy tales were cautionary tales."

I feel like this book the way I did about Marisha Pessl's Darkly- excited to devour the book but finding it a) hard to get into and b) a suspension of disbelief over the object (in this book, a collection of fairy tales) causing such a cult following. There are so many characters and all of them sound the same, from a young woman to an old Scottish professor to a retired nurse (this is a major pet peeve of mine when an author chooses to write everything in first person). Many times I had to remember whose chapter I was in as to what secrets this particular character had.

The story is clever but because I read Pliego's last book, I was ready for gruesome deaths, murders that might not be fatal, a large cast of characters who all have something to hide, and tricks of how she uses language. I had a hard time understanding the library's layout (at one point a couple of the characters just seemed to be going down a ton of different hallways with a wrecking ball made of marble).

The fairy tales that were sprinkled in were an interesting touch and I kept trying to figure out if or how they tied into the "real" story happening.

I knew that Aria wasn't Evangeline's actual granddaughter and I knew a character would fake her own death because at one point, no one else could have been the killer. (In this case, Piper is actually the lost granddaughter Eden and Aria's stepsister who she calls "Rory" and she fakes her death in front of Jasper and Aria). Everyone is killed because they hold information that could prove catastrophic to the Riordan fortune that Piper is set to inherit. Meanwhile, Jasper, an architect who Aria has been dating for 4 months, turns out to be a detective? Oh wait that's a trick to0 -he's actually the grandson of Evangeline's rival Grant Iverson and Wes is not just the "prep school teacher" but an Iverson cousin. Everyone, from Michelle (former author in residence) to the nurse (accused of killing Evangeline) is trying to sabotage something here. Turns out that Aria does kill Alice, Rory's mother, but only because Alice herself is a killer (this is not detailed very clearly but we get that from both Aria and Evangeline at the very end).

The language is descriptive but repetitive. I think that's where I started getting impatient. The author uses it to drive tension through the characters' physical and mental fear (of secrets being revealed, of being trapped, of being killed, take your pick) but again, all the different characters describe it the same way. "My teeth grind" is a description used at least 4 different times by at least 3 different characters. Everyone's "ribs are hooked into their mouths" and the use of the word "serrated" to describe breath and throats is such an unusual description I noticed it each and every time it was used. (Speaking of throats, in the beginning, there were so many references to character's throats that I thought this might be a book about vampires.)

Thanks for the opportunity to read and review!

[Nat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an ambitious thriller, playing with timeline and characters' identities and motivations in interesting ways. And it was delightfully atmospheric; as creepy and bizarre as the Daedelus Library sounded, I would love to take my chances on a visit to it.

The basic story is that a handful of people are trapped in the library during a nighttime tour: Aira and Jasper, who are on a date; Callum, an academic specializing in rare books; Piper, a journalist; Michelle, a children's/YA author who'd once studied at the library; Saskia, a librarian tasked with leading the tour; Ruth, the home nurse for the library former owner; and Wes, a random teacher. Spooky things start to happen virtually as soon as the tour starts, with the first death happening shortly thereafter. Is there a killer in their midst, or is the library as haunted as people have said it is? What are the secrets each of them are carrying? And with the bodies piling up and the library seemingly determined to keep them trapped, will any make it out alive?

All in all, the makings of a great thriller. Execution is where this falls short. It was all a bit too much.
- Too many perspectives: we get first-person perspectives from every living character, plus at least one dead one.
- Too many mysteries being revealed, many of which I didn't realize were mysteries I should be looking out for. Several of the characters have secret identity reveals, including one whose identity changes a few times after that. It's like we, the readers, are several steps behind the characters, and we only begin to catch up all the way in the final pages. This is not to say we need to be aware from the jump about all the mysteries about to be solved over the course of the story. However, some early exposition might have given context to events as they were unfolding, allowing us to speculate as to how present events connected to past ones. The constant revising of what I thought was happening in the plot was tiring by the end. And I don't think I could actually say whether the central killer's motivation was founded in fact, based on the evidence we got.
- Layered on top of the actual events was a coded book of dark fairy tales, which are interspersed throughout the book. What do they mean? You may think you know, but honestly, it doesn't even make a ton of sense by the end when they are explained.

This could have been so good with the literary equivalent of Coco Chanel's advice; instead of removing a few accessories on the way out the door, maybe using fewer first-person perspectives, or not including the dark fairy tale chapters, or streamlining some of the motivations.

In spite of how extra this whole book was, I think I liked it. It was creepy and inventive, and I was compelled to keep seeking the library's answers--and exits--with the dwindling group of characters. I just wish I could have been a bit more in on their motivations along the way.

Rating: 3.5/5

I received an advance reader copy from Netgalley for an honest review.

[Hannah Rowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5 stars! I present to you the ultimate mystery for bibliophiles. A page turning, heart racing, lose sleep over, locked room murder mystery for lovers of literature. I have never read a book quite like this one, which is a compliment. There is a supposedly haunted library, a potentially cursed book, false identities, betrayals and so much more. The book has a very gothic undertone that I just ate up. It paired beautifully with the atmospheric writing and descriptions. This book would be perfect anytime of year but especially in the winter. There are plenty of descriptions of snow and cold. The nature of this book itself is chilling and the atmosphere only enhances that more. This story is full of untrustworthy characters. There are multiple POVs and all of them are unreliable. The story takes place during an after hours tour of an infamous library and the way the story is told/written it makes the reader feel like we ourselves are taking the tour and watching everything unfold. We learn everything as the characters do. Each one has something to hide from one another. I simply could not stop reading. I didn’t want to. It was so unpredictable and full of twists, even at the very end! It had me questioning anyone and everything. What was real? Who really were these people? There are interwoven folklore/fairytale stories throughout that are important to the story. I enjoyed them very much on their own. I’m really glad the author included them in the book. It made the experience that more immersive. Even though so many horrible things happened in the library, I so wished it was real. It was a mesmerizing setting filled with themes reading rooms, bookshelves shaped like trees, secret passages, hobbit holes, wardrobes to Narnia, and so much more. Truly it was a book lovers dream and at times a nightmare. If you couldn’t tell, really loved this book. (Despite giving me whiplash and mild motion sickness.) I don’t know how it would work but I would love to read more from this world. I won’t stop thinking about this book for awhile.
*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review!*

[Ande Pliego · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was jump-scared by reviews going live (hello! Thank you early readers!), so before I sign-off Goodreads, a quick word about The Library After Dark.

Crack open the first page, and you might notice that this story dances right off the edge of a knife (or, guillotine blade). The Library After Dark sparked to life during one of the darkest seasons of my life, and as a fun result, was the hardest book I’ve ever crafted. Writing is a staring contest between your soul (sanity?) and your paper, and I’ve never so badly wanted to blink (quit) than with this book. And yet.

Everything snapped into focus once I (exasperatingly belatedly) remembered why I bleed ink in the first place: monsters in life may abound, but books—the echoes of people long past, made immortal through pen on paper—can be a lifeline. Sometimes, we find courage in a book. I know I have.

And there it was, the theme of the book. Duh, Ande.

With this story, I strived to capture both the horror and whimsy of fairytales because the best ones—in my opinion—have a bit of both. After all, life itself is a balancing act of wonder and terror, isn’t it? If You Are Fatally Invited is about want and what you do with it, this book is about fear. It’s about the nightmares that reduce us to our most terrified, child-like selves, and the stories that give us the courage to bare our teeth back and say “do your worst.”

The Library After Dark is for the adults who once lost and found themselves again in fairytales, who crave that nostalgia of being swept away into a beloved story for the first time. And perhaps most importantly, it’s for anyone who has ever found exactly what they needed between a book’s pages. Beneath the bizarre book history bits, the glint of a knife and the haunting rooms where silence is thick as smoke, I hope you find something that’s a comfort to you, as it was to me.

-A

[M Steinbrink · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Library After Dark is the first book I have read by Ande Pilego and it was not what I was expecting, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I love books about libraries and mysteries, so that was what drew me to this book. I was also expecting a dose of the paranormal and maybe a gothic setting. That is not what this book is. It’s a scary and graphic book, which many people like, but I was not used to. However, the story is very well written and there are twists and turns everywhere. I really enjoyed the writing from many perspectives because it really kept you in the middle of all the action. I was very shocked by the ending and I really couldn’t put it down until I finished it. I actually read the last few chapters twice because I was so surprised by the ending! I’m not sure if Ande Pilego will become one of my favorite authors, but this is a good read and I can understand why it is so highly anticipated.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book. All opinions are my own.

[Thio Moss · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title, The Library After Dark, hooked me. Within a few pages, I was spellbound. This book takes risks—and they pay off. Ande Pliego uses multiple points of view and includes mini fairy tales dividing the sections. Normally, either of those choices—and especially both together—might pull me out of the fictional world. That was not the case here; they are woven into the story beautifully, like a broken reflection.

There are subtle hints throughout the narrative, and when the truth is revealed, everything clicks neatly into place. Despite catching many of them and theorizing my heart out, I didn’t solve the mystery before the end—which delighted me—but it absolutely can be done.

The story structure is exquisite; the pacing, excellent; the style something I want to turn into a dress and wear to every bookstore in town. I loved The Library After Dark—a well-earned five stars.

Many thanks to Ballantine/Bantam for this advance copy. I received The Library After Dark through NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving this review.

[Angie Miale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly addictive, eerie licked room mystery that takes place on the history tour of an old library. No one is who they say they are. Some people aren’t even who they say they are the second time.

Ande Pliego’s sophomore Effort does not disappoint. It is less jump-scare, and more immersive world building. Darkly suspenseful, we follow aria and her new boyfriend Jasper as they go to take a tour of the locally famous Dedalus library. What a name, right? Although Jasper thinks this is going to be a private tour, they are surprised to find a group that will also be a part of the tour of the historical landmark. They are even more surprised when they find themselves, unfortunately, locked in. And with at least one killer amongst the group.

You won’t be able to put this one down! Although the room is full of a character cast, they have enough differences that you can easily tell them apart, and guess who is next. The internal dialogue, contributes to the intricate plot, and while the ending is somewhat unbelievable, I was 100% along for the ride. I love the way this author sets up a story.

If you love books, and have fantasized often about living in a huge old library, you will love being a part of this world for a while.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bantam for the ARC. Book to be published May 4, 2026.

[Annabelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

It isn't a stretch for book lovers to enjoy a book about books or libraries, so how about a book about being locked in a library with a murderer? Its a special, invite only, after hours tour of this museum-like library that turns into a hunt for a killer reminiscent of the game of clue. The guests run around the library trying to get out while avoiding getting killed in this well-paced who dun it (and why). Its a fun and entertaining read to the end when all the stories are torn down to reveal the killer and the motive. There is even a bonus book-within-a-book featuring fairytales from the book that is the library's most prized item.
I received access to this eARC thru NetGalley (for which I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher, Ballantine - Bantam) for an honest review. The opinion expressed here is my own.

[Kat Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This book was so creepy and atmospheric. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but feel I must admit that I spent a large portion of it confused, which is why I ultimately gave it a slightly lower rating.

There were A LOT of POVs and I thought I had characters figured out, but I didn’t. I honestly still don’t know what the character, Ruth’s, motivations were for being on the library tour.

This story was fast-paced, gory, and borderline horror. The sprinkling of creepy fairytales added to the horror-like atmosphere.

I enjoyed some of the twists. Some I figured out on my own and some totally blindsided me.

Ultimately, I do recommend this one, but maybe don’t devour it because the devil is likey in the details that I read over too quickly…

This one releases on May 5, 2026. A big thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine for a free eARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

[Marion]

We are given a tour of the mysterious Dedalus Library with an eerie atmosphere, plenty of secrets, suspicious deaths, and a group of suspects. Plenty of suspense, action, twists and a shocking ending that you wouldn't expect. This book will keep you on the edge of your seat. Pliego added multiple perspectives, which gave a uniqueness to each character plus what went on in the library during their tour. The story is based on a a group of people (Aria, Jasper, Callum, Michelle, Saskia, Ruth, Wes and Piper) who received an invitation for a private nighttime tour of the Dedalus library. What they didn't know was that they would become locked into the library with a killer. I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys a good mystery, the game of Clue or unexpected surprises. Thank you to NetGalley and Bantam Books for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Holly Browning · Rating 3 out of 5]

Horror for bibliophiles! Suspenseful, atmospheric murder mystery that takes place in a strange and gothic library. Lots of twists and turns that keep you guessing till the end. Interesting plot and backstory. The characterization felt a bit scattered and all over the place, especially with a larger list of players. Unique and great for library and mystery lovers. #thelibraryafterdark #andepliego #netgalley #goodreads

[TD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley for the arc!

This was such a fun read and I'm so glad I was given the opportunity to read this book and discover this author. I loved the library setting and the fact that we're trying to figure out who the murderer is was so exciting and when I got to about 1/4 through the book, I didn't want to put it down. I binge-read the majority of this book in one sitting.