"Everyone has at least one secret that'll break your heart."

And in the town of La Cachette, the self-proclaimed Psychic Capital of the World, those secrets are bloody and well-kept, despite nearly every resident having some sort of magic. That is, except for Grey, who lives in Little Rock with her father during the year and comes down to the most south you can get in Louisiana to visit her grandmother and friends for the summer— but ever since her best friend and twin flame Elora went missing six months ago without a trace, Grey's powers have been awakening, and the town she considers home hasn't been the same. No one is being honest with each other, and just when Grey thought she might get close to figuring it out, a mysterious blue-eyed stranger shows up that throws everything out of balance and starts raising questions about the town's dark history.

"How do you keep a secret in a town full of psychics?"
"You tell the truth. At least part of it."

One thing that really stood out to me about this book was the atmospheric setting and how vividly constructed the town of La Cachette was. I mistook the flowers on the cover for coral and the alligator for a tide pool rock, so I was expecting a coastal mystery when I started (no, I did not read the summary very closely and yes, I've scheduled an eye appointment). I was really surprised when the book dropped me into the Deep South bayou, but Ginny Myers Sain built the town in my mind from the ground up. Even when I was iffy on other elements of the story, I always had a clear image of the boardwalk, the gator pond, the houses, and areas like L'il Pass and Keller Island. This is, like I said, a very atmospheric book and perfect if you're craving an immersive summer mystery.

Despite this book coming out at the end of this month (Aug. 31, 2021), it was surprisingly tropey in a way I'd expect from a much older book. There is an odd love triangle with two boys who have very intense eyes, one being a childhood friend and the other being a new boy with strong powers; a lot of twins; a dead mother with a mystery surrounding her; a cast of magic kids (which I wish had been developed a lot more!); weather that matches the drama of the scene; and a predictable solution to the mystery of Elora's disappearance that involves... well, I'll let you read it.

However, there is a ton of back and forth and secrets revealed, so I did end up second-guessing myself a lot and getting really wrapped up in theorizing, especially during the final arc. I ended up being nearly exactly right from the beginning, but I still had fun reading this. I will say that this is one of those strange books where I feel like things are crawling at a snail's pace until something happens, and then I'm going a mile a minute, and then we're back to the slow crawl until something else happens. I believe my problems with the pacing came from the in-between parts feeling a little forced. The side characters and Grey's relationship with them felt underdeveloped compared to the love triangle going on, which was sad because I wanted more. I could feel the personality in the other Summer Children lying just below the surface, but there was a lot of mud in the way.

There are clear influences and old common tropes that might make you laugh a little bit, but overall I liked this debut and got through it pretty quickly. The ending is super dramatic and high-tension and the epilogue is VERY cheesy, but I look forward to seeing more of Ginny Myers Sain's work.

"Knowing is hard, but it's a thing you can survive. The not knowing will kill you in the end. It's the secrets that fester."

❧ 3 ★

*Special thank you to Penguin Teen for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review!*

I loved this book! I was immediately sucked into this world of psychics and mysteries and enjoyed every moment of this book. The world-building was really effective, and the descriptions of La Cachette were vibrant and detailed so I felt like I was there with the characters. The small-town mystery vibes were immaculate! The entire book was atmospheric and haunting. I also liked how each character had unique psychic abilities; initially I worried that this would come off as clichéd or tacky, but it actually worked well for this book, enhancing that spooky mystery feeling. The idea of the Summer Children was also interesting! There were so many little details that worked to make this world seem entirely realistic.

Overall, I wouldn't say that I loved the characters, but they were certainly entertaining to read about. Many of them were actually quite unlikeable (Hart, I'm looking at you), but it added to this book's unsettling ambiance. I was suspicious of just about every single character at one point or another. Grey was an interesting protagonist, and we watched her struggle with accepting the death of her best friend, her twin flame. She felt like an entirely realistic character, flawed and struggling, often unsure, getting through life day by day. I liked her grandmother, Honey, a lot; she was a bright, warm character, and while still keeping her own secrets sometimes, I could tell how much she loved Grey.

The romance felt a bit half-baked to me. It was okay, but not much actually happened nor was there really a conclusion. There was some awkward little love triangle that I was not a fan of. It felt a little like the romance was shoved in just for the sake of having some romance when, in reality, we could have just stuck to friendship and been perfectly fine.

The conclusion to the mystery was brilliant, and I never saw it coming! I should have seen it coming--it seems so obvious in retrospect--but alas, I did not. It was a shocking, dramatic end to the book.

To conclude, I really enjoyed Dark and Shallow Lies! I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an atmospheric thriller with paranormal elements. I gave this book 4.5 Stars ​⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️​✨. Make sure to grab a copy of this book when it hits the shelves September 7th!

Content Warnings: murder, drowning of children, mentioned physical and emotional abuse, arson and death by fire, mentioned self-harm, strangulation, grief

A bit of a slow burn, but atmospheric enough that you don't mind sinking into it. Willie Nelson was something of a highlight for me.

3.5 Stars

Content Warnings at end of review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Teen for an arc of this book.

When Grey goes home to La Cachette Louisiana the summer after her best friend vanishes, she is determined to reconnect with her friends and find out what happened to Elora. But she ends up finding that the town is hiding more than just their psychic abilities.

I really enjoyed the writing in this book! It was super dark and atmospheric and I got really into it. I thought it was very mysterious and I was definitely trying to figure out who I could trust, who was at fault, and what bloody secrets the town held.

I didn't love the characters that much. I wasn't a big fan of Grey's obsession with her friend/crush Hart, and I didn't like the way he was acting. Obviously these things were written this way for a reason, and it did make sense later, but I didn't love it. I also felt like Grey just jumped from one boy to another with no really self-reflection there.

Overall, I enjoyed this!

Pub Date: Sept 7, 2021

Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Body horror, and Child death
Minor: Incest

Another one I couldn't put down! An absorbing and atmospheric psychological thriller meets urban fantasy meets southern gothic. Mysteries and mysteriousness both past and present collide as our protagonist endeavors to uncover the truth of her missing best friend amongst an eerie backwater bayou town filled with a limited number of potential suspects - all of which have their own psychic abilities...and all hiding their own secrets.

Yeah that's a great set up right there. And filled with spooky Southern Gothic vibes: a boogeyman, a "Rougarou", incoming storms, swampy waterways, decrepit docks....along with an illicit romance/love triangle, conflicting accounts and emotions, and burgeoning powers that may or may not make our protagonist and unreliable narrator make this one a fast paced page turner. The characters and setting really make this story - one in which the setting of the swampy bayou is almost a character in itself (with shades of Michael McDowell who is the king of Southern Gothic Horror and making nature itself a frightening presence/character in his novels). Plus a shout out to Willie Nelson, the alligator lurking at the edges.

Fans of both YA Fantasy and YA Thrillers will enjoy this one with its uniquely fitting setting and plenty of twists and turns, including a pretty big twist there at the end. Enjoy:)

Thanks Penguin Teen for sending my way---

If you are into YA mysteries with elements of fantasy and magic this one is for you.

I thought the mystery was really well done. I was certain I had everything figured out from the start, but I didn’t see the end coming and was fooled multiple times along the way.

I liked that the book centers on characters with psychic abilities, it was definitely a unique idea and offered a great view point.

I do wish the book was a little shorter as it came in at over 400 pages, and I did have some problems keeping track of all the characters, but those are “me” problems.

Overall I enjoyed and would encourage you check it out! Especially YA fantasy and mystery lovers!

This book is categorized as a YA paranormal mystery thriller, but I’m just going to call it a hurricane an a book.

This book is very evocative, it gives you a sense of creeping dread, of hairs standing up on your arms and beads of sweat rolling down your back. It’s compulsively readable!

There’s a lot of action, it starts immediately with our MC Gray heading back to her tiny hometown in the bayou of Louisiana. Her best friend Elora, born on the same day as her and who she grew up as close as a sister with. has gone missing. Once Gray gets back to her hometown and her amazing grandma Honey, things get wilder and wilder from there.

I promise you, you will love Gray and you will enjoy the absolute craziness of this supernatural town. It’s keeps you guessing until the very last page. I highly recommend!

Not good or bad in any super significant way. I just couldn't connect with the characters in the way I'd hoped to. However, I do think this is one teenagers are going to flock to, which is great. It's a solid book for the ideal audience, absolutely.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read an ARC of Dark and Shallow Lies!

I wanted to love this one, since it sounded so cool, but unfortunately, it just didn't work for me. I think my main issue with the book is that I felt that it is trying to be two different things at once and neither feels fully fleshed out. On the one hand, it's a thriller, in which the main character, Grey, is trying to find out what happened to her best friend, Elora. As she is investigating, she also finds out many secrets about the past. On the other hand, it's a fantasy novel, in which everyone in La Cachette has different psychic powers. However, I felt like the psychic power system in general wasn't well fleshed out, and I felt like the thriller aspects weren't particularly thrilling. A lot of pieces just sort of happened to come together, and none of the characters really did much throughout the story. If the author had fleshed out the magic system more, or perhaps gotten rid of it entirely and focused more on the thriller aspects, I think this would have been a much better book.

The premise of Dark and Shallow Lies where a girl disappears from her town in the bayou and "where magic festers beneath the surface of the swamp-like water rot" sounded amazing, especially as a supernatural thriller.

The descriptions in this book made me feel like I was deep in the bayou with everyone. I was there with Grey trying to figure out what happened when her best friend went missing. I will say that I was surprised by the way that the mystery played out, in more ways than one. Some parts felt a little obvious to me, but I appreciated that ultimately, I wasn't able to guess who did it. This was very different from anything that I've read this year which I enjoyed.

It took me a while to really get into this book. I wanted more magic and supernatural elements, it was La Cachette is supposed to be a psychic town so I wanted more development in that aspect. I'm also not a big fan of love triangles that aren't real love triangles. I thought that Grey's relationship with Elora was a little obsessive and unhealthy. Also, I feel like going into this I should have been more prepared for the lies, since it is in the title, I think that I struggled with the point of some of them.

CW: mentioned murder/drowning of children, mentioned abuse, mentioned self harm, arson & death by fire, strangulation, romantic relationship between step-siblings

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Young Readers for providing me with an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Penguin Teen for providing this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

Dark & Shallow Lies was okay. I did not feel connected to the story or characters. I mostly guessed the big reveal so the ending wasn’t too surprising. There’s kind of a love triangle which was just annoying.

I will say that the author did a great job with painting the picture of the swamp, river, and small town.

This moody small town mystery will grip you from the first chapter!

I was absolutely floored by all the twists in this novel! Grey is such a great heroine, I was rooting for her right away, and her devotion to finding out what really happened to her friend Elora was really engaging. The reader is pulled into this atmospheric town and taken along for a hell of a ride!

The pacing does struggle at times, but overall I really liked this book! It does get really dark at times though, so definetly be prepared for that.

I can't wait to read more book from this author!

Thank you Netgalley for this ebook arc to review.

I absolutely adored this lush southern gothic based in the Louisiana bayou. There was mystery, loss and the perfect amount of suspense that kept me intrigued throughout the entire book. I loved following Grey's story throughout the book but I also really enjoyed all the other characters back stories and involvement. Dark and Shallow Lies has an eerie yet mystical atmospheric vibe throughout the entire book that keeps the reader hooked and the ending was absolutely not what I was expecting. Willy Nelson (the alligator, was definitely one of my favorite characters!) If you love southern gothics with intrigue, storms and mystery let Ginny Meyers Sain take you into Grey's Physic bayou world of murder and mystical mayem!

Did I just read this entire book in one sitting? Yes. With snack breaks, of course. When I say I couldn’t put this book down I mean I genuinely didn’t put it down for any longer than it took to run and get more snacks.

The downside of reading an entire novel in under three hours is now it’s all too mixed up in my brain to write a coherent review and I don’t remember any of the characters names. Except Grey, because that one is easy to remember.

This was a twisty and complicated supernatural thriller with lots of magic and suspense. The ending caught me completely off guard and was the one thing that I never even suspected, but it was incredibly satisfying and well done. There were a lot of secrets in this book. A <i>lot</i> of secrets. Every time I suspected I knew what had happened something new came out that blew my suspicions out of the water.

There wasn’t a lot of character development, but it was more plot driven than character driven, so that was okay. There was a lot of depth to each character, as their secrets slowly came out and their relationships with each other changed because of it.

Overall it was a fascinating dark story that left me with just enough questions to keep me thinking about it while also being completely satisfied with the resolution in the ending.

What a beautiful story of grief, loss, and love, set in an underrepresented community as far south in the Louisiana bayous as it gets.

“There are no roads that lead to La Cachette. To get here, first you drive to the end of the world, then you get on a boat and keep going.”

La Cachette, Louisiana – a tiny close-knit town that is bordered by swamp and proclaims itself the ‘psychic capital of the world’ is the setting for Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain. It’s a place of magic and mystery and the place where 17-year-old Grey comes home every summer to help her grandmother, Honey, run the Mystic Rose. It’s here where the Summer Children were born and where some have died. Grey’s twin flame and best friend, Elora went missing three months ago and she and Grey didn’t part on good terms the past summer. Grey is determined to find out what happened to Elora the night she went missing but the secrets she uncovers could be opening up a dark past that has been hidden for many years.

I loved every second of this supernatural thriller/mystery and I finished it in just over a day! I’m completely blown away that this is a debut novel! There are so many things that make this book 5 stars for me. I loved the characters but especially the Summer Children! Then there’s the small-town setting of La Cachette which felt like its own little world just brimming with a tense and foreboding atmosphere. I was completely invested from start to finish!

Narration: The audiobook is 10.5 hours and narrated by Emma Ashton. This is my first experience listening to Emma and she is an absolute delight!

My thanks to Penguin Teen and Penguin Random House Audio for the gifted copies!

If you've started making your Fall TBR and are on the lookout for an eerie and atmospheric story to read on a cool September evening, Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain might just be the perfect book. Set in a small coastal Louisiana swamp town of La Cachette, laced with magic, mystery and the supernatural, and peppered with some Cajun culture, Dark and Shallow Lies will pull the readers in with its uncanny beginning and keep them turning pages up until the absolutely shocking conclusion.

"The dead? They lie. Just like the rest of us."

Seventeen year old Grey spends summers with her grandmother in La Cachette, but this summer is brutal. Elora, Grey's best friend and twin flame, has been missing for six months, and no one knows how she could possibly disappear into thin air with no trace. What's worse is that every other person in La Cachette is supposedly psychic, and yet no one can say for certain what happened to Elora. Another thing bothering Grey is the mysterious unpredictable flashes she's started experiencing right after entering La Cachette. What she can't seem to figure out is- is Elora trying to contact her, is she trying to tell her something, is she still alive? As Grey tries to untangle the mysteries, she feels like they keep getting more entangled and convoluted. Everyone seems to be hiding secrets that they're not ready to let be uncovered. And then there's that icy-blue eyed stranger she spotted in the storm one night. What's the deal with him?

"Knowing is hard, but it's a thing you can survive. The not knowing will kill you in the end. It's the secrets that fester."

Dark and Shallow Lies is an expertly crafted mystery that had me guessing until the very end and twice I thought I had it all figured out but I was totally wrong. The ending was an absolute shocker. Smartly placed twists and turns throughout the story both strengthen the plot and confuse the readers and it all makes up for an engaging reading experience. But, what I loved most about this book was the atmosphere and creepiness that tags along from page one, the swamp setting adding another layer to the overall eeriness. This is a story full of secrets, lies and betrayals and it also gets awfully dark at times, so be forewarned.

Recommended if you're looking for an unsettling atmospheric mystery braided with secrets and sprinkled with a hint of the supernatural.

The quotes are from an uncorrected proof and might change in the finished copy.

“The dead, they lie. Just like the rest of us.”

4.5 Stars!

Wow, this was dark and eerie. The suspense had me from the beginning. I absolutely enjoyed this book. I loved the town, the people and the plot was solid. I love that I was completely speechless with the ending!

What a supernatural page-turner! I loved this young adult thriller, with psychic elements and a missing girl—all set in a marshy, deep Louisiana town….

Dark and Shallow Lies is about the disappearance of a teen girl in a Louisiana small town. Named the “psychic capital of the world”, Grey can’t believe that after 6 months, no one has solved the mysterious disappearance of her best friend, Elora. Grey is determined to uncover what happened the night she disappeared, and begins to discover secrets after encountering a stranger with ties to Elora.

I loved the author’s way of describing the setting, and the immersive style of writing was incredibly addicting. This book was had some very creepy elements, with an ending I did not see coming. My only real complaint was the length of the book, as the middle did feel a bit less intense, however it’s all build-up for a shocking twist—one that had me staying up past my bedtime to finish!

Overall this book was quite unique, super fun, and full of plot twists. If you’re looking for a good YA suspense, look no further!

Thank you to @penguinteen and #netgalley for my advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

I can't tell if this book just wasn't for me or if it was objectively bad. I was so bored throughout the entire thing. It took me absolutely forever to finish and this was a short read (for me personally). I think this would've been so much better as a short story. 100 pages tops. If I wasn't under contract with Penguin teen to finish the book and post a video review on TikTok, I would've 100% DNF'd this.

Most of the book was incredibly predictable and all of the characters were incredibly flat and bland. None of the emotions Grey was supposed to feel felt believable or real. Her relationship with Elora felt incredibly toxic and underdeveloped. Actually, nearly all of the relationships in this book felt underdeveloped and incredibly flat.

I was excepting a lot more of the magic and psychics and spirituality but there was so little of it. And what little of it there was felt so forced and unnatural. This was mystery in the loosest sense of the word.

I love a good thriller/mystery but this is just not one I would personally recommend.