This was a book that I Really enjoyed this read and I would recommend to others easily, I will be looking out for other titles by this author.

Well this story had me definitely creeped out. There was a lot of suspense and tension throughout the book. I really liked Heather and thought that she was a strong and complex character. I wasn’t prepared for that ending.
Many thanks to Crooked Lane Books and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was a creepy good book! I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes a thriller/mystery with some surprising twists and turns.

Did you ever have a pen pal as a child?

When Heather returns home after her mother dies from suicide, she is going through her belongings and find she's got a pen pal... but her mother's pen pale is actually a serial killer!

The book has alternating views, something I love because it gives a book greater depth. I really felt the tension building as we learn more about the serial killer and how that ties into the current string of murders/disappearances! I could see this playing out on the big screen.

There was always something going on - lots of elements but I did get frustrated when Heather acted like the blond chick running UP the stairs from the stalker rather than down... Instead, she wanted to get all the answers on her own *face plant*.

In the end, I enjoyed this fast paced thriller.

A Dark and Secret Place by Jen Williams is a thriller about Heather and what she discovers after her mother's death. As Heather is going through her mother's things, she finds letters from the serial killer Michael Reave. Apparently he and her mother had been corresponding for many years. As Heather investigates the connection between her mother and the "Red Wolf," she ends up falling deeper and deeper into some harrowing truths. This story was well-written, but it was seriously dark. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

This book was extremely creepy. I had high hopes for it after reading the synopsis, but in the end it fell flat for me. It got confusing in parts which made it not only hard to follow, but also unbelievable. There were also some disturbing things for me with the animal violence that I had to skip over. I wish there were trigger warnings in the synopsis of books.

This is definitely DARK in such a good way! I fell in love with the main character, Heather -- she is the ultimate hero/anti-hero to me and I feel I could make an argument as to why she, alone, deserves a netflix series. The story is gripping, and there were so many creepy moments. Lots of layers in this story. Win!

I really enjoyed this book, it was dark, twisty, full of surprises and it kept me guessing until the very end. Would recommend!

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I found the premise of this book very intriguing, which made me want to read it. Unfortunately I didn't like how it went from there. I wasn't able to connect with the main character, Heather. She constantly lies unnecessarily and is often rude. The creepy stuff happening around her was interesting, but except in the end of the book I wasn't particularly worrying for the protagonist much.

To me it dragged a bit in the middle, it became a little repetitive. Some creepy things happen but not much come of it and she basically did the same things until we get to the conclusion.

I did not like most of the end. It brings a good plot twist and it all connects but it was mostly disappointing to me. I wanted a little bit more in the end on the detective and on Diane, her old boss. I won't say more to avoid spoilers. Even though I didn't love the book I still think it's worth the read to get your own opinion on it.

I really think Jen Williams could be a new favourite thriller author for me. This novel is a dark mystery in the tone of shows like Luther or Marcella but without a detective as the protagonist. I had to read something packet cleansing at night before I went to sleep or I’d have nightmares aha. But this created a compelling story with great pacing and characters who I was invested in throughout. You can see my full review on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/8tzi5RoJrck

This was my first time reading this author. I liked the cover and the synopsis and I am so glad I requested it and even more stoked that I got approved. The book begins with the main character, Heather Evans, returning home after her mother commits suicide. She is overcome with many complex feelings of loss, guilt, and sadness. we learn that Heather actually left home when she was sixteen and hasn't stayed close with her mom. She learns that her mom has been corresponding with a famous serial killer for many years. At the risk of spoiling, let me just say that I really enjoyed learning about this killer (I love True Crime and this read as such) but the coolest part was the shift between the past and present. The author shared glimpses into the boy who became the Red Wolf, as well as Heather’s downward spiral into the sinister mystery that surrounds the sprawling lands and lore of the own of Fiddler’s Mill. This reminded me of how Thomas Harris did with the Red Dragon novel. I enjoyed the insight and the development. The ongoing question is: Is Heather safe or is it her overactive imagination or is she being stalked? This is a well written thriller that will keep your attention and you will not want to stop reading this addictive story once you begin it. I LOVED it!

A friend of mine read and really enjoy this book so I figured I'd give it a shot since we have very similar taste in books.

While I enjoyed the book, it didn't blow me away. I was flying through the pages for the first half. There was this creepiness within the words that haunted the story. However, the second half of the book lost that creepiness factor and the pace of the story slowed down for me.

Certain weird things kept happening to Heather but she just kept ignoring them. Like how?! I would have been running for the hills if I were her.

While I did predict some things before they happened, there were a couple I didn't see coming, which I enjoyed.

Overall, I like A Dark and Secret Place but was just hoping for more in the end.

Thanks to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. This was a good psychological thriller that focused on a woman who finds out her mom was involved in some way with a serial killer. The writing was incredibly atmospheric and the pacing was good. It was a fast read that I would recommend to friends looking for a good thriller.

A Dark and Secret Place is a chilling, hypnotic novel about the legacy of violence. Part police procedural, part Gothic fairytale, this book will appeal to thriller and horror fans alike. Jen Williams's language is mesmerizing and the plot kept me turning the pages well past bedtime -- and when I finally fell asleep, it gave me nightmares.

I was expecting a lot more from this read based on the amount of highly rated reviews I saw, but unfortunately it was not a hit for me. The book started off strong by setting up the mystery surrounding Heather's mother's relationship with a serial killer and the atmosphere was well established, but as I kept reading, it started to go downhill. For one, Heather was a disappointment as a main character; she was annoying and unsympathetic with the most annoying habit of talking aloud to herself. There also were too many elements going on at once that bogged down the storyline (the dead birds, the woman in the red coat, the vanishing babies, the fairy tales, etc). The last straw was the rushed ending filled with too many over the top moments.

Overall, it was a 2 star read and not one I'd recommend.

So this one left me feeling flustered at the end. I wasn't, and I'm still not, quite sure how I would rate this one. There were parts of it I loved. My favorite genre and the story was intriguing.... Here it comes ... BUT .... Eh. I don't even know how to describe why I wasn't completely captivated by it. Somewhere along the way, it just became okay and not great.

I would recommend it, especially to those who like serial killer stories.

Thank you #netgalley and #crookedlanebooks for the eARC.

I really wanted to love this book. The premise is that a young woman goes back to her childhood home in the wake of her mother's shocking suicide. The lead character, Heather, had a difficult relationship with her mother after leaving home at 16. Rambling around her mother's house, Heather comes across two strange things. One is a very old book of Grimm's original fairy tales. The other is a packet of handwritten letters that Heather's mother had received from a now imprisoned seral killer, the Red Wolf. Unbeknownst to Heather, her mother had been corresponding with this serial killer for years and years, including the years before Heather's father's death when Heather was still a child. She can't come to grips with the woman she knew and this woman who had been pen pals with a serial killer. To try to understand, Heather makes a plea to the police to speak with the Red Wolf, aka Michael Reave. The police reluctantly agree because another serial killer is now at work, and his MO is identical to Reave's, and they hope that Heather might get Reave to provide her some insight that can help them catch this new killer.

So the plotline was intriguing and the writing was very good, what went wrong? I'm not sure I can articulate my reasons for not loving A Dark and Secret Place. The best I can say is that in the end, I felt as though I had read a particularly evil fairy tale. The murderer(s) were ugly and heinous, and I never had a clear picture in my head of them or the locale where the murders took place. This latter point is important because the locale is as much a character in this novel as Heather or Michael Reave. It was one of those books that I rushed through to the end not because I wanted to see how it all turned out but because I wanted it to be over so I could move on to the next book in my TBR stack.

Despite my personal feelings, I'm giving this book 3 stars because it is well written and will no doubt find an audience. Just not me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

For me, the highlight of A Dark and Secret Place is that fact that it was different to any other book I’ve read previously. Not just the mother/serial killer friendship aspect but how both those characters weren’t written in the stereotypical fashion. Michael Reave and Heather’s mother were also the most interesting characters. They were key to the plot but also had a good backstory and development journey. Considering the heavy focus the author also puts on Heather, I would have expected her character to be unravelled a bit more, and a stronger backstory outlining her relationship with her mother would have made this a much stronger book.

While I enjoyed A Dark and Secret Place overall, there were areas, besides the characters, where I would have appreciated a bit more. For example, more vivid descriptions and more detail in areas. For a book about murder, I was surprised that the scenes with the victims weren’t more fleshed out. However, despite the book having some areas I felt were lacking, the more I read the more invested I became in the plot, and I found the ending to be tied up neatly.

This book had a really interesting premise, but the end threw a lot of information at you very quickly - leaving me with a feeling of whiplash almost. The beginning of the book was also a little confusing, as it kind of switches time periods/ perspectives between some chapters but you don't have a clear idea yet of who is who or what is going on. I think there are also some really difficult scenes to read in the book, particularly with a few baby birds about 30% of the way through.  I think the writing was engaging and the book was alright, but it's definitely a lot to handle if you aren't prepared going into it.

This book ended up going in a different direction than I thought it would. I was prepared for a typical ‘serial-killer-thriller’ novel, but what I got was more Manson than Bundy. That’s to say - there’s blood and death and the sinister feeling of being hunted that follows you through the pages, but you also get cults and their communes, ritualistic killings, and lore that takes on an urban legend or fairytale-like quality. This book is dark, like DARK dark, and you’re fully immersed in the grim storyline from the first line. However, it seems like the author was fully committed to driving the plot forward and as a result, didn’t pay any attention towards developing the characters, which meant it was hard for me to ‘get into’ this story because I didn’t care about the characters at all. It’s not a bad book by any means, and if you find yourself in the mood for something dark and disturbing, this would be a solid choice.

Trigger/Content Warning: child abuse, animal abuse, grooming, suicide