Graveyard Shift by M. L. Rio

An overnight destination I was tempted by, but didn’t finished, Graveyard Shift: a Novella is described as

A story about a ragtag group of night shift workers who meet in the local cemetery to unearth the secrets lurking in an open grave.

I felt destined to enjoy going on my first short-ish adventure laid out by M. L. Rio. The title and cover art look exactly like an excursion I’d like to book, and it sounds like a perfectly entertaining bookish goth-of-any-color’s bedtime romp.

Unfortunately (for me), it was (or started out, anyway) too one-action-after-another, introducing one-character-after-another, and not enough cozy descriptive immersion.

Still, Rio’s introduction was worth reading for the author’s vision. She says

I liked the idea of a story about sleep and sleeplessness that could unfold over only one evening, like a shady, troubled dream.

It seems like she wants to visit a lot of the same places I want to (NIGHTTIME and CEMETERIES), but might have a different way of enjoying them. One that is accessible and enjoyable to people who enjoy group outings and/or certain kinds of mystery books more than I do.

Again, though, the concept of sleeplessness prompting her creation of this book is alluring to me:

. . . . the most arresting odes to slumber are spoken by those who can’t have it. Consider Macbeth, doomed to sleep no more: slumber is the “balm of hurt minds,” “sore labor’s bath,” a doting seamstress who “knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care.” Insomnia unravels a person without mercy. The mystery at the heart of Graveyard Shift is as much about what keeps us up at night as it is about what’s buried in the cemetery. Of course, I have also been a lurker in churchyards; the proximity of somebody’s final resting place can be a strange comfort when you can’t find any rest of your own. When I was in college, the tiny plot of plots behind my dormitory was a favorite place I rarely had to share. But I did occasionally encounter other insomniacs there, running down the long, dark hours until morning.

I love the idea of sleep being a destination best rhapsodized by characters who can never seem to get there: a place always on the so-close but so-far-away horizon. I want to hang out at night by the kind of person who unspools those kinds of words. I also love the idea of going someplace you count on to be abandoned, but sometimes meeting strange someones who are on the same page as you, but in their own quirky way.

Now that I know what to expect, I might give this book another try by setting aside a couple dusky hours with a physical copy of the book (rather than the ebook I checked out via Libby) in a suitable destination with good light; the lovely graphics/illustrations on the turns of the chapters and the quick rate you’re rewarded with them (if sample/preview on my laptop screen and people’s notes that the chapters are short are correct) might be more fun to enjoy with somewhat livelier ambiance (by a fire in a hotel lobby during quiet hours, for example) than in bed with all the lights off, preparing for sleep ASAP.

On the other hand, maybe it’s just best to use this book and her vision for it as a prompt for writing my own desired graveyard shift stories.