Actress Liv Reed is ready for a break, so she ends up booking a stay at the House of Light in upstate New York. However, she isn't getting rest - she's diving into a mystery about the House, its leaders, and those who have disappeared. She creates a podcast to share her information and theories as she stays within the House of Light.

This book had me hooked from the beginning and really picked up as it went along. Liv occasionally made me crazy with her sneaking around, but her fast relationship with Ava, another resident, and their determination to dig into HoL was pretty fascinating. This was the second book by Caite Dolan-Leach that I've read and I enjoyed the connections between the two books.

A troubled actress, weird cult, mysterious deaths and a podcast combine to form an intriguing tale of discovery, danger and betrayal. Olivia Reed has lost her way. Agreeing to take a break at a spiritual retreat, she soon realizes all is not as it seems behind the facade of peace and tranquility. Is something sinister at play, or is she the victim of an over active imagination? The story is creepy, atmospheric, and intense. I enjoyed the podcast element of this slow burn mystery as twists were revealed. Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books for my copy.

A fair amount of books recently have had the story revolving around the development of a podcast. I think that this style is interesting and sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. In this case, it worked. The story was interesting and moved along fairly quickly and went back and forth between the podcast and the rest of the story. This was a 3.5 star read for me!

This review was also published on Goodreads.

Olivia is a minor celebrity who hits rock bottom. She goes to a rehab facility, but soon finds it’s not all yoga and meditation. The facility is more like a cult, and not something Liv is onboard with, so she starts a podcast to expose the darkness.

Dark Circles has an intriguing story with interesting characters. The story is told from Liv’s point of view and through podcast episodes. The podcast element was the most entertaining part of the novel.

Dark Circles is a tense and atmospheric thriller. Recommended for readers who enjoy thrillers about cults and podcasts.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This would have been a DNF but I’m a sucker and I really don’t like doing that. But here we are with a book i didn’t care for that much, don’t have anything positive to say

I’m not sure why but I love books about cults. That plot line really does it for. This book was a very solid slow burn! I enjoyed my time with it and thought it was a job well done. Can’t wait to read her again!

I was initially drawn to the premise of this one, as I'm all about cults, weird deaths, and true crime podcasts. And this one does have a fun twist to the set up (an actress going into a wellness retreat turns into a podcaster), but by the reveal at the end, I kinda lost steam and felt it was a little forced. Overall, it was a fun read though!

1 star. Dark Circles missed the mark for me.
Thank you to Caite Dolan-Leach, Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine, and NetGalley for this Arc in exchange for an honest review.

For some reason I thought this was about Aliens, it isn't! Maybe it was the title. A lot of books have been going the podcast route and unfortunately I think I'm just tired of reading about them in books. I was really into this one at first, but felt myself getting bored toward the end. If this were shorter I think I would have enjoyed it more! Thank you to the publisher for my copy!

3 for neutral, was unable to access my netgalley account for months, until today. Because of this, I was unable to see which books I needed to read. I apologize for the inconvenience and hopefully will not have any more issues in future.

Synopsis? Great! Title? I like it! Story? Not terrible, but convoluted and I don't think yet another entry into NXIVM or other batshit cults was entirely necessary. I could forgive this if the book was better written, but it just didn't do it for me. It is slow - VERY slow - to start, and while it does get some giddyup going about half-ish way through before barreling on to the end, some of the supposed secrets are just so weird and silly that by that point I just cared about getting through it, having decided that 2022 was going to be my year of zero DNFs.

Young actress gets shipped to rehab after doing bad-but-not-terrible things. While there, she stumbles on to a "this place ain't right" vibe, and when she gets out, decides to become a podcaster (at least it wasn't "become a youtuber") in the true crime arena. First out of the box: the cultish rehab, where women have died under mysterious circumstances. By the way, Editor, whoever you are: leaving the ads in a printed representation of a spoken podcast? What in the world were you thinking?

The main character was really, really difficult for me to care about. At all. When the meat of the story got going, I managed to put her aside, but authors, please: you don't have to have a character who is entirely unlikable. It's very hard to care one way or the other whether they meet their goals or not, or if they die after ten pages or three hundred. There's middle ground there. Find it.

Two out of five stars. Sorry, author. Not this one, not for me.

Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for the reading copy.

Dark Circles is a semi-suspenseful novel featuring a young film star, Olivia Reed, who is sent to a rehab facility known as The Light in order to salvage her career after a number of indiscretions. She subsequently becomes suspicious of The Light after noting that a number of young women have died there under suspicious circumstances. After being kicked out of The Light, Olivia decides to turn into a podcaster to find out what The Light actually is and where the women have gone.

I’m actually making the novel sound far more coherent than it is. The beginning is slow and hard to follow, before speeding up towards the end when all secrets are revealed. Unfortunately, these secrets are highly bizarre to the point of absurdity (although it’s possible that cult fiction is just not for me). 3.5 out of 5.0 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book.

So remember how I mentioned literary trends I keep coming across in my last review? Well, NXIVM-like cults are certainly the other big one. DARK CIRCLES is a pretty obviously inspired by that horrific story, but it takes it one step further (murder!) Also, of course, there is a true crime podcast weaved throughout the story and the main character is a celebrity! All the hits!

I have read and enjoyed Dolan-Leach's two previous books, and enjoyed them! The most fun part? Characters from her first book, DEAD LETTERS, are a part of the other two. In this one, Ava from that book plays a major role, which was a fun hat tip. I do wonder how long the author can keep this going.

Anyways, this book was super fun and I had a hard time putting it down. I wanted to know the mystery and while the ending left me sort of confused (truly though, if you've read and want to discuss I have questions!!), I'm glad I picked it up to kick off my month of spooky books.

There was a good story behind the length of this one, but that alone was so distracting from the story. The podcast element included commercials, and I'm not sure who thought that was a good idea to leave in a book. So much editing was needed here to shorten this, and make it crisper, and I probably should have dnf'd but I was vested just enough to know how this would end. The synopsis was great and what hooked me on this one, it's just the execution that could have been so much better.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine for the digital copy to review.

After a public meltdown resulting in bad press, an actress is sent to a retreat to detox and get herself together. But when she discovers some strange incidents, she starts a true-crime podcast that goes viral.

I had trouble getting into this book at first as the egotistic main character was so hard to like. When she started on the podcasting, I was drawn into the story and the mystery surrounding The Light and flew through the second half of the book. Decent read.

Dark Circles is an easy to read thriller about Olivia, a former teen actor turned real-time podcaster. During a pretty much forced retreat/rehab, Olivia starts to discovery theories about the retreat, House of Light (HOL). One of the other women tells her that there's been a rash of deaths connected to the retreat, but they were all classified as suicides. Olivia starts to dig deeper into the cases, but naturally, finds herself down a rabbit hole and in trouble herself. Overall, I enjoyed this book, especially the twist at the end that I was not prepared for!

Ugh could not get into it! I finished it, but it felt like a slog. I liked the premise but the main character just did not click for me.

If you like stories about creepy cult like places and podcasters then Dark Circles by Caite Dolan-Leach is for you! Think new age spiritual retreats in the woods and people dying. The tension in this book was suffocating at times, in a good way. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy reading about cults, amateur detectives, and podcasters. Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Okay, this is a tough one to rate because I really really wanted to like this one.
I enjoyed the first part immensely and it captivated me. Olivia is an actress going to stay in this wellness retreat but learns it’s a whole lot more than just a retreat after seeing a dead body being pulled out of a lake.
The story goes back and forth from present day and to a podcast she is producing about a true crime case linking deaths of 4 women.

However, after 25% of the book it just began to drone and wane on and it was so convoluted to make sense of what was going on and what direction it was going in. I stopped at 70% and I rarely do that but it just didn’t get any better for me.
Too many books too little time.

This book on paper seemed like something I'd love, but the reality was that the plot was kind of a mess with lots of loose threads. The writing and descriptors were strong, but it felt like a letdown from time to time. Rating 3 stars.