While I definitely planned to get to If We Were Villains before I read this, I am not disappointed at all by this being my first foray into M.L. Rio's writing!  Graveyard Shift follows an eccentric group of night owls who meet at the same churchyard every night and become embroiled in an academic mystery when a hole mysterious appears at their meeting location. 

While I would have loved to get more time with all of these characters, I think this works very well as a novella. The snapshots into each character's lives and motivations over the course of one night built a tense atmosphere that had me engaged up to the end. I loved the mystery and the unfolding of it, which the writing balanced very well with an immersive setting. The ending came much more abruptly than I expected, but that has emerged as my only disappointment. M.L. Rio is clearly talented at building distinct characters in a short amount of time, and I will be recommending this far and wide - as well as bumping IWWV way up on my TBR. I hope I get to see more of her work in the future! 

I was provided an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley and Flatiron!