By Kate Alice Marshall
Flatiron Books, 2023. 322 pages. Fiction
Twenty-two years ago, Naomi Shaw believed in magic. She and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent that summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her 17 stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls' testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes. And they were liars. For decades, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods--no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be.
In her debut adult fiction novel, Kate Alice Marshall constructs a tale of psychological suspense full of menace and the bittersweet memories of childhood. She excels in her depiction of the complicated, interwoven small town dynamics that breed secrets, lies, and, in this case, murder. At first, I wasn’t sure I would be able to relate to Naomi and the trauma she went through in childhood, but she won me over with her pragmatic nature and hunt for the truth. She was the perfect protagonist to push this fast-faced plot along as each new twist and turn is revealed. Overall, What Lies in the Woods is a dark and foreboding thriller with its fair share of surprises.
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By Stacy Willingham
Minotaur Books, 2022. 357 pages. Fiction
When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, her own father had confessed to the crimes and was put away for life, leaving Chloe and the rest of her family to grapple with the truth. Now twenty years later, Chloe is a psychologist in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. While she finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she's worked so hard to achieve, she sometimes feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. So, when a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, seeing parallels from her past that aren't there, or for the second time in her life, is Chloe about to unmask a killer?
By Riley Sager
Dutton, 2018. 370 pages. Mystery
Two Truths and a Lie. The girls played it all the time in their tiny cabin at Camp Nightingale. The games ended when Emma sleepily watched Vivian, Natalie, and Allison sneak out of the cabin in the dead of night. The last she, or anyone, saw of them was Vivian closing the cabin door behind her. Now a rising star in the New York art scene, her paintings catch the attention of Francesca Harris-White, the socialite and wealthy owner of Camp Nightingale. When Francesca implores her to return to the newly reopened camp as a painting instructor, Emma sees an opportunity to find out what really happened to her friends. Already haunted by memories from 15 years ago, Emma discovers a security camera pointed directly at her cabin, mounting mistrust from Francesca and cryptic clues Vivian left behind about the camp's twisted origins. As she digs deeper, Emma finds herself sorting through lies from the past and the closer she gets to the truth about Camp Nightingale, the more she realizes it may come at a deadly price.
BW
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