The Wolf of Winter by Paula Volsky

Um. Fantasy Russia, with necromancy.

I had trouble sympathizing with the main character for being imprisoned in a library. I mean, I'd like to live there. Regular meals, routine, infinite quantities of books, tutors to help you study anything and everything, impassioned debates about footnoting. . . and benign necromancy in the cellar. Paradise! So it was hard to sympathise with Sharri's dislike.

Did the practice of necromancy invariably destroy a person's moral sense? Volsky didn't seem to have made up her mind. Villan Varis had the excuse of an unfortunate background, that Sharri thought had ruined him. . . But Sharri did not, and she felt the lure of necromancy, and tortured a spirit without caring. And even Varis thought that he would once have felt conscience-stricken by what he did, suggesting that the necromancy, or the drugs, had changed him. Yet the Librarian conclave didn't seem to have any such problem.

Oh well.