This book was an absolute dumpster fire. The writing was trying so hard to be poetic to the point where I'd be lost as to what the characters were doing because she kept describing them as "touching each other's bones" or something to that nature.

I’m not sure how I feel about this one still. I liked it while I was reading it but I found it very forgettable. I did really like the characters and the story line.

I was hoping to like this more than I did. It was good but just not what I was hoping it was going to be.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

A very intricate read that has a lot going on that's shrouded in the complexity of the story.. I really wanted to enjoy the story itself, but it was very slow paced. Amy, Ben, & Ted are intriguing characters with their own stories but it was hard to connect with them. Where Secrets Lies is hard to follow and unpact. it was like reading a mystery trying to unfold on top of everything else.

I am unable to read and review this title. It’s not on my device or the Netgalley app and its been archived so I’m unable to download it again.

I feel like the final reveals of this novel are telegraphed pretty early on. We go on quite a journey throughout the plot but The vibes are all present from the earliest chapter. The fact is, not a lot actually happens. Much more space is given to interpersonal conflict than to the actual mystery and its investigation. The eventual reveal feels more like an inevitability than an actual surprise.

held together by familial bonds and summers spent running wild and free. The summer of 16 pushed them apart, putting a school year's worth of space and silence between them, but the summer of 17 holds promise of connecting again. Amy, Ben, and Teddy feel the pull to be together, even when they're mad at one another. The summer pulls them together again, breaking the silence, allowing the silent looks and hushed connections to start once again. Then, the unthinkable happens, Teddy's sister disappears and the friends must fully set aside their differences.

I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. I was just not into it at first, Amy is so surface level, but as I kept reading I realized she is meant to be this way. She's straight up an onion character, the kind you have to peel back to understand, and only Teddy and Ben have the ability to do it. Eva V. Gibson, you're a genius writer. Learning about Amy, her past, her family's past, all of it, it just was incredibly well done. Then, you mix in a missing girl? Three friends becoming detectives on the most horrific crime? I was hooked.

Where Secrets Lie is so much more than a missing child thriller, that missing child highlights the differences in society. From class differences, family secrets, money, and first love, Where Secrets Lie has a bit of it all. The secrets these kids and their parents and the community are secret? Holy SH! It's an unputdownable young adult romance thriller, the kind I think teens and younger readers will enjoy the most, but is worth picking up for any well-written novel fan.

A wonderful friendship has been injured and the three friends are holding grudges against each other. The grudges are put on hold when Nat, Teddy’s younger sister, comes up missing. I love the character development! The author does a great job bringing her characters to life. Ben’s colorful personality has grown from his dysfunctional family life full of contradictions and hypocrisy, but he’s loyal to his best friends, who are his cousin Amy and their mutual friend Teddy. Nat is precious and precocious and adorable. Amy is hounded by her mother and her extreme expectations and Teddy and Nat live with their single mother in a trailer on Ben and Amy’s grandparents’ property. The three friends work together to try to figure out what happened to Nat. The timeline alternates between two summers and the changes that occurred in their relationships. The police believe that Nat drowned but the three friends know she would have never gone into the water alone. Nat was terrified of swimming after she almost drowned years earlier. As Ben, Teddy and Amy search for clues, they stumble across a trophy box from a possible serial killer. Intensity and suspense amid a large amount of dysfunction kept me reading into the wee hours of the night, 5 stars!

This is a story about how terrible things can pull us together

I want to start by saying that the pros is beautiful, and I’ll absolutely read other works by this author. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t conned to the protagonist- she’s self absorbed to a level that would be impressive if she wasn’t so insufferable. I was very interested in the central mystery, but there were too many plot elements for it to be the focused on that.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ .💫/5

Thank you NetGalley & Simon & Schuster for this eArc

Content warning provided by the author (gosh I love when people do this!): "This story contains content that might be troubling to some readers, including, but not limited to, depictions of and references to death, kidnapping, serial murder and forensic evidence, child abuse, domestic violence, poverty, homophobia, mental health conditions, and childhood trauma."

Whew, so that is a lot, and I will say, this book was rough at times, to my emotions. Knowing the author's last book, I wasn't particularly surprised, but the missing sister really did a number on me. I think because she was not just a child, but such a well-written, delightful child at that, made it so much more difficult. It did, however, also make the characters' responses seem all the more authentic.

Anyway, the book is told in two timelines- last summer, and the current summer. And last summer, things got pretty messy with Amy, her cousin Ben, and her bestie/crush Teddy (the brother of the aforementioned missing sister). So when they first meet back up in the current summer, things are awkward from whatever happened last summer. Only, that all gets pushed to the back burner when Teddy's sister goes missing. So not only do we need to figure out what went on there, we need to understand what led up to it.

I will say this: I figured out what had happened fairly early in the book. I don't necessarily think it was super obvious, so I was pretty proud of myself. (And if you figure it out early too, let's just pretend we're both really really smart people, and not that it's obvious, okay? Great.) But I still was eager to learn some other things, and ultimately to see the characters figure out what was happening. Because wow.

Amy is kind of clueless and very spoiled. Her mom is kind of the worst, so I get it to some extent, but I felt like her cousin and friend were kind of dealing with more here? To be fair, I don't think Amy tried to compare her struggles to theirs, and tried to be cognizant of the fact that she needed to not make these things about her. Which shows growth to me, at least. Her family in general is a whole yikes. And most of the town. I guess what I am saying is there is a lot going on in this book, and most of it spoilery, so I'll leave it at that. But if you are here for the drama, you've found it!

Bottom Line: It's definitely quite an emotional story, and I was absolutely pulled in to the mystery and what would become of Amy and her loved ones.

Where Secrets Lie constructs a then and now story of Amy and her cousin Benny and their best friend Teddy. Spending summer in River Run, Kentucky has been the only joy in Amy's life, mainly because of her best friends. However, in the summer of 2019, Teddy's little sister Natalie goes missing, and when her body is found it's ruled an accidental drowning. However, the trio suspects foul play and dives into the mystery while sorting out new romantic dynamics in the group.

I think this book was trying way too hard to be like a Karen M. McManus book but couldn't stay away from the dramatics. The romantic push-and-pull between Teddy and Amy was exhausting and took away from the mystery, the real interesting part of the story. I didn't really understand why there were 2018 flashbacks because it didn't set up much other than a blow-out "fight" which consisted of them shouting profanity at one another, which happened almost every chapter anyways. All of the main characters were crappy people, so it was hard to root for them or want them to succeed. The number of rude jokes and language was so over the top to the point of being annoying.

I liked following the mystery but the romance really dragged the plot down. I also liked the genuine discussions of economic disparity and Amy's complacency with her economic privilege compared to Teddy and Natalie. I guessed some of the twists but the big reveal was a little bit of a shock. There were too many failures in this novel for me to give it a stellar review, but I can understand why some people really enjoyed it. I would recommend a Karen M. McManus book instead or something by Jennifer Lynn Barnes to satisfy a mystery reader. This was too bogged down in romantic dramatics and plot meandering for it to be a success in my eyes.

Where Secrets Lie, by Eva V. Gibson, combines mystery, romance, thriller, and family drama all into one intense read.

Every year Amy looks forward to spending her summers in River Run, Kentucky. There she spends her days with her cousin Ben and a friend named Teddy. That is, until the summer, she and Teddy change the dynamics. By exploring the tension that has been building between the two.

She was worried that she had ruined everything and dreaded returning the following year. Only, other events have swamped any fear she could have had on that front. Teddy's sister has gone missing, and that is the start of something much darker.

Where Secrets Lie is a roller coaster of a read. It's dark and intense and has more than one surprise lying in wait. This is by far one of the more descriptive thrillers I've read this year, and I hope that is saying something.

Honestly, this is a perfect book for a quick and fun thriller read, if that is what you're looking for. However, I should probably mention that it does actually deal with several complicated and sensitive subjects (kidnapping, child abuse, homophobia, and mental health issues, just to name a few).

There were times where I had trouble genuinely appreciating the narrative, especially in the earlier parts of the book. It just felt like Amy, and her situation was a little...forced? I'm not sure if that is the best description, but it is the first one that comes to mind for me.

Still, I enjoyed the experience of reading Where Secrets Lie, and I'm going to look forward to seeing what Eva V. Gibson writes next.

Where Secrets Lie by Eva V. Gibson is a young adult romance wrapped around a mystery that follows a trio of teens over the course of two summers. Amy returns to her mother's hometown of River Run, Kentucky every summer to spend time with her spoiled and charismatic cousin (Ben) and his best friend the broodingly handsome Teddy. As Teddy and Amy try to figure out their feelings for each other the trio is thrown headlong into a tragedy that has drastic consequences to all three of their lives.

This novel is very melodramatic in both language and plot. The teenagers are emotionally volatile and the romance is super angsty. All of the parents are unreliable, selfish and possibly psychotic and the secrets within the family are twisted and sad. When something terrible occurs the three turn to each other to do their own investigation and the close contact makes it impossible for Teddy and Amy to keep a lid on their feelings for each other. But, neither of their families nor Ben wants to see them together which means a lot of push/pull and will they/won't they for most of the novel.

I found Amy's character the most inconsistent of the three. In the first chapter she portrayed herself as some sort of Ice Queen using all the lessons her parents ever taught her freeze people in self-protection. I was looking forward to her coldly icing everyone out but that doesn't hold when she sees Ben and Teddy for the first time since their huge fight the summer before. Despite everything she quickly drops the entire act and never picks it up again. I never really bought her disenfranchised act in regards to her parents. When compared to what Teddy and Ben go through she comes across petty and spoiled with little to complain about except that her mom expects to her draw...really well . As for "her boys" Teddy is your typical hot brooding bad boy with a heart of gold (from the wrong side of the tracks) and Ben hides a lot of pain and secrets behind a cocky smile and a few choice words. For most of the book I found this trio and their relationship wildly unrealistic and over the top dramatic with their declarations of being together in a "world without end" and then spending most of the book angry at each other and unable to communicate. But, on the flip side it did keep me sucked in wondering what would happen next. I, personally felt that the characters and the story would be better served if they were aged up a few years. With their attitudes and the way they spoke they struck me as much older than the 15/16 of summer 2018 and 16/17 of summer 2019.

I thought the addition of the mystery done quite well. It is a painful loss for everyone and they all handle it in different ways. Ben's obsession with solving it himself throws the characters into the action instead of what could have just been another teen romance novel with make out sessions, cigarettes and underage drinking. The police detective Darrow was probably my favorite character and he gets to be one of the few adults that isn't a total worthless P.O.S. and actually takes the kid's efforts seriously. There are a lot of red herrings and twists but a few things are pretty obvious to the reader and but not the characters.

Despite some of the flaws this was a juicy, immersive read that kept my interest and curious about what was going to happen next. The author is careful to point out the possible subject matter that readers may find uncomfortable and listed the names of help organizations in the back of the book. The language is pretty frank and spicy and might not be for every reader.
I could definitely see this as a movie and hope some studio snatches up the rights to it!
3.5 stars rounded up to 4
My copy of Where Secrets Lie by Eva V Gibson was provided by Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for my unbiased review

I enjoyed Gibson's style and how the story slowly unraveled, but I acknowledge that the author's writing isn't for everyone, and some readers may not enjoy it. This is the second book I read by this author, and I will happily keep reading.

While I had some issues with it, I remember enjoying Eva V. Gibson’s angsty debut, Together we Caught Fire and I was really looking forward to her follow up. Unfortunately, this one did not work for me.

My biggest issue was that I was pretty incompatible with the writing style. I don’t like a lot of description or imagery and this book is over the top with the imagery and metaphors. It didn’t work for me at all and honestly just really annoyed me. I’m sure there will be readers that will love this aspect of the writing, but I have very little patience for it.

I thought all the relationships in this book were toxic. Amy and her whole extended family are obviously dysfunctional, but I thought the friendship between her, her cousin Ben, and her friend Teddy was pretty awful, as well. Honestly, I thought they were abusive towards each other and the way they kept coming back together over and over again was like a beaten spouse that can’t leave a marriage. Even if there were a couple of sweet or funny moments thrown in, I never stopped wanting these kids to get therapy and less-toxic friends.

The whole mystery aspect of the story didn’t really work for me, either. I felt like it made the story just drag on and on, as nothing they investigated brought about the resolution. Also, my very first suspect early on in the story ended up being the villain. There were a couple of other big “secrets” that I thought were super obvious long before they were revealed. I also thought that with the heavy and serious subject matter, throwing in pages upon pages of Amy being mad at Teddy for not returning her romantic feelings in the way she wanted him to was ridiculously petty and childish.

Overall, Where Secrets Lie was not for me. I didn’t connect with the writing style and could never really get on board with either the mystery or the romance. The one bright spot in the book was Ben, who I actually really disliked about half the time, but still found pretty compelling.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 2 Stars

Cousins Amy and Ben have been close their whole lives, even though Amy’s mom got out of their small Kentucky town as soon as she could. Every summer, Amy comes from DC to stay with her grandma, and spends every second she can with “her boys,” Ben and his best friend Teddy. She’s loved Teddy forever, but until recently that hasn’t been out in the open. The reader is left in the dark as to the status of their relationship, as the chapters alternate between the summer of 2018 and 2019, a tactic which will unfortunately date the book prematurely, especially for its intended audience. When Teddy’s little sister disappears, the relationship between Amy and her boys gets complicated. The mystery of what happened to Nat takes a back seat to the off and on romance between Amy and Teddy. The twists and turns and unveiling of the family secrets ramp up during the last few chapters with a satisfying surprise ending, but it might come too late for many readers. While the writing style is compelling, the overly adult-sounding repartee and extreme navel-gazing makes all three main characters hard to relate to.

I tried and tried to like this book. I just could not get into it. The plot moved extremely slow, and I didn't get to know the characters to care about what happened to any of them. Also, the language was just bad. I stopped at 27%.

Family secrets, class differences and first love collide in this twisty, atmospheric thriller set in a small town in Kentucky. Amy, Ben and Teddy’s longtime summer friendship is already on shaky ground at the outset, the balance of their trio thrown off kilter by deeper feelings simmering under the surface. When an unthinkable tragedy changes everything, the story that unfolds will catch you up in its spell and leave you turning pages as fast as possible to find out what happens next. Don’t expect to get to bed early after you start reading this book!

I read Where Secrets Lie in one sitting. Much like getting swept away by a current, I was swept right into the world of River Run.

Every summer, Amy Larsen lives with her grandparents in River Run, Kentucky. She loves her annual escape and the time she gets to spend with "her boys," cousin Ben and neighbor Teddy. The summer of 2018 ended with a dramatic falling out between the friends and summer 2019 is off to a rocky start, but the drama is cut short when tragedy strikes. Teddy's younger sister, 10-year-old Nat, goes missing, and the friends are unified in their search for the truth of Nat's disappearance. As the plot progresses, the reader learns exactly what went down last summer, as well as everything the trio uncovers while playing detective.

I enjoyed this fast paced mystery/thriller. While some of the twists were predictable, they weren't SO obvious that I wasn't excited when it turned out my prediction was correct. I thought the characters were well-developed and the alternating timeline was helpful both in building their backstories as well as keeping me invested in Nat. I liked that each chapter had the date at the top--I never had to ask myself which timeline I was in while reading.

Given all the challenging topics in this novel, I really appreciate the inclusion of a content warning in the beginning and the resources at the end of the book. From an educator standpoint, I would (and will!) comfortably recommend this book to students in 11th and 12th grade with the requirement that they read the content warning at the beginning of the book to help decide if they're up for it. I think mature 9th and 10th graders could handle this book with parental approval, but I wouldn't actively promote it in those grades due to the content and language.

Gibson, if you read this, I would definitely read a spin-off/prequel about Amy's and Ben's moms, Sam/Peter/June, and Noah!

Finally, thank you so much to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read this ARC in return for an honest review.