This book had me on the edge of my seat! I absolutely couldn't put this down. I loved the dynamic between Becca and Ben, I could feel the tension in that spot deep in my chest. Every page had twists and turns and dove deeper and deeper into Roses death. Definitely putting on my reread shelf.

I read this ARC via Netgalley.

When Becca's best friend Rose is found dead, she knows it wasn't a suicide, despite what the police said. Rose's brother Ben is also suspicious, plus he knows a few things Becca doesn't. Though Ben and Becca butt heads, their relationship veers into flirting. Then Becca discovers secrets Rose was keeping, involving Travis, Becca's ex, and Becca finds herself in dangerous situations trying to uncover who killed Rose.

This story had a great pace that didn't let up. The circumstances around Rose's death were a bit murky at the start, especially with the steamy push/pull of Becca's attraction to Ben taking center stage. I struggled to trust Ben fully throughout and there were many other suspects. Becca's insistence on putting herself in dangerous situations frustrated me, especially in the second half of the story. There were a few flashbacks and Rose felt like a major character despite being dead, which was interesting.

Content advisory: Strong language, <spoiler>date rape, teen/teacher relationship</spoiler>, teen drinking and drug use, murder and gore.

After a car accident takes her best friend’s life, Becca Thompson becomes a shell of the person she once was. Ben McCain, her best friends brother returns home from school and Becca couldn’t care less. She holds a grudge against him for ditching his sister in the months before she died.

Ben is determined to figure out what happened the night his sister died, and tries to enlist Becca’s help. The trail leads down a rabbit hole of late night parties, secret wishes and crazy exes. Are they ready to face the truth about the person they thought they knew?

I enjoyed this book. It was another one where it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t anything to scream about either.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc.

Becca just lost her best friend and is struggling to make it through each day, except Becca is thrown into a web of lies that leaves her wondering was it suicide or was it murder? As Becca relentlessly digs deeper and deeper even she wonders how far she will have to go to find out the truth.

Thank you Net Galley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book. Although listed as a YA novel I thoroughly enjoyed it and feel that it is also suited for adult readers. The book was, at times, predictable but still an enjoyable read. The characters were well developed and I found myself wanting to read more to find out how the story was going to unfold.

I feel like this book was trying too hard to toe the line between romance and thriller and ended up being neither. We didn't really get to know Rose, so I was left not caring about her death. I saw every "twist" coming, which left me wondering if they were really meant to be twists at all. I did enjoy the romance between Ben and Becca (which we all knew was coming, so it's not a spoiler), but it definitely detracted from any building suspense. But with all of those complaints, it's still compulsively readable. So maybe it's just a guilty pleasure book for me, who knows?

*Thank you to Wise Wolf Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*

I love the idea of mixing mystery/thriller with romance. This should be a thing way more often! I was highly anticipating this book. The mystery elements in this story were predictable to me, for the most part. I’m not a teen, but I think teens would find themselves seeing the same predictions I did. Nevertheless, the romance part was really nice. I liked the enemies to lovers situation with the grief interspersed in there. I will read more of this author’s stuff in the future, esp. if it’s romance thriller! Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy.

Wise wolf books reached out to me and sent me an electronic arc in exchange for a review. Release date 1.27.22
** 3.5 rounded to 4.
This book was okay! It wasn’t my fav, it wasn’t my least fav.
It gave me major pretty little liar vibes, especially Rose. She reminded me a lot of Alison. Rose is the wild child who has a secret life, while Becca is the shy, timid girl who doesn’t really know her best friend like she thinks she’s does.
Becca is currently struggling through a deep depression after losing her best friend, and I think some scenes touched on the depiction of grief rather well.
I don’t necessarily think it’s a thriller, it’s definitely a dark mystery with a lot of mature topics. I think the author did a good job on touching on them tho.
I could have done without the relationship between Becca, and Roses brother, Ben.
Ben made me cringe - a lot. I felt like we just jumped into their relationship and it more like a romance at the beginning then it did a mystery.
The characters were written well, and did have surprise elements I wasn’t expecting. The twists within the story were also surprising in my opinion!

An ARC was given to me through NetGalley from Wise Wolf Books in exchange for an honest review

I’ll preface by saying that this book simply just wasn’t for me. I didn’t connect with the characters and I didn’t enjoy that the thriller aspect of the book felt like it took a backseat to the romance plot-line, which personally just didn’t click with me but I have confidence that other people will enjoy it.

The twists were good, the reveals were shocking and the setting was well fleshed out. It was easy to imagine yourself in the characters shoes and their reactions to grief seemed genuine and relatable. I liked that the characters weren’t perfect and were clearly portrayed to have their flaws.

This may not have been my cup of tea but if you’re looking for a romance with a thriller twist I think this will be the book for you.

Summary: Becca Thompson's best friend, Rose McCain, has died and she is deep in her grief. Everything changes when Rose's older brother, Ben, comes back home from college asking questions about his sister. Becca wants nothing to do with Ben or his prying since he deserted his sister. When Ben starts to question what really happened to his sister the night she died and how it may have not been an accident, Becca agrees to help him. Becca only wants to clear the name of her bestfriend. But after finding so many secrets hidden from her, she may realize the lies are less scarier than the truth she so desperately wants.

Review: At first I was pretty interested in the book. It gave me Pretty Little Liar vibes. The first part was good, but unfortunately, further reading on, I had to stop multiple times. It just seemed like too much. I'm someone who gets into books, and this, it just didn't do it for me. This book reminds me of most scary movies. The ones where the girl hears a noise in the basement and goes down there in the pitch black dark to see what it is, or the chick that is running away from a killer and trips on the absolutely nothingness that's in front of her and somehow is still alive at the end. I think the book could've been better.

3.5-4 stars

The Liars Beneath had me conflicted. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and the plot so much. However, the beginning of the book started a little wonky for me. Becca in the first 30ish% of the book seems extremely immature for her age. She came off in those chapters as more of a 15-year-old instead of an 18-year-old. I get that she was grieving the loss of her friend but some of her behavior was a bit odd for someone of her age. I also felt like this book leaned more heavily towards the romance than the mystery surrounding Rose’s death, which I didn’t mind at all because it gave a little insight into trying to move forward after a loss but it was presented in my opinion as more of a thriller with a side of romance.

Heather Van Fleet did an amazing job at keeping me guessing throughout the entire book. I was flip-flopping back and forth between who I thought did what. I was able to guess a few details before they were revealed but for the most part, I was surprised. Another thing I really enjoyed was the time shifts from the present to the past. It gave a better insight as to who Becca, Ben, Rose, Travis, and Adam were before Rose’s death. It also clues you into suspects, motives, and exactly who the liars are. All in all, I would love to read more from Heather Van Fleet in the future and would recommend this to my friends and followers.

An amazing YA thriller.

I flew through this, it had me completely invested and was at the edge of my seat the whole time. Couldn’t put it down. The mystery, the questions and tension made it a page turner.

100% Recommend

Thank you to the publisher and also #netgalley for the #gifted copy of The Liars Beneath in exchange for my honest review.

The Liars Beneath is a young adult thriller about Becca and Rose, two high school best friends and the tragic end of one of their lives. Becca was a more reserved version of her best friend Rose. The girls had kept a bucket list they wanted to get through while they were still in high school. This unfortunately lead to some of the riskier behavior from the girls. When Rose turns up dead her brother Ben comes back to town and asks Becca to help him try and find out what really happened to his sister. Becca and Ben have a long standing relationship with playful banter and almost a love-hate relationship. They start questioning people and when they do they quickly discover that someone wants Rose’s death to be left alone!

Things I liked 😃

✔️Kept my attention
✔️Lots of twists and turns
✔️Did a great job making me feel I could be in high school again

Things I didn’t care for:

✔️Emotions from several characters seemed extreme at times and not how people would truly behave.

✔️The decisions some of the characters made seemed unrealistic or unreasonable.

This is the story of the worst two months of Becca's life. The death of her best friend Rose sends Becca down a dangerous path full of secrets. With Rose's brother, Becca starts to unravel the tangeled threads.

The Liars Beneath starts off slowly as Becca drowns in her grief. Between Becca's preoccupance over Rose's death and the blossoming feelings with Rose's brother, this is a heavy read. It's an interestingly crafted story that weaves despair, love, and mystery together. Warning: there are predatory and abusive charactors.

This review is also posted on GoodReads and has been formatted for GoodReads (there are html markups within the review that will not translater over in this review)

(I finished this book on Tuesday, it's now Thursday, and I honestly can't remember much of anything that happened - that alone should lower this to a 1 star read, but I'l keep it at two, because why not.)

I’m stuck between 2 and 3 stars. Not because I think this is an amazing book, but because it did keep me reading, but the back of the book blurb and the actual story are two totally different things. I’m going to settle on 2 stars because had the book been sold as something else, I’d been more on board for the 3 star read it was. But I was expecting something dark and mysterious and tension filled and those things were never delivered.

There will be minor (out of context, untagged) spoilers below. There will also be spelling errors (because I alwys miss at least one).

I’m also really, really, bad at being concise, so if you’re looking for a short review, this isn’t it.

I’m pulling a line from the blurb from NetGalley since GoodReads (Amazon) is having a hissy fit right now apparently.

<b> A romantically dark YA thriller set in the backdrop of Iowa’s suspenseful farmlands. </b>

This is not a thriller. There are various debates as to what a ‘thriller’ really is. Some say a ‘ticking clock’ others say ‘high stakes’ and there are lots of others. But for me, if my heart-rate doesn’t increase, if I’m not reading as fast as humanly possible to know what happens next. It ain’t a thriller. And this book is VERY FIRMLY not a thriller.

Let’s touch on the DARK aspects of the book. CW: <spoiler> death, suicide, physical abuse (fist fights, choking, sexual abuse, two different characters get knocked over the head), forced sex by a partner, drug use (alcohol, weed, off the page suggested illicit drug use - yes, I’m calling alcohol and weed ‘drugs’ because for the most part they were not used recreationaly but as a crutch by various characters in the book), Adult-Child sexual relationship (teacher/student), abortion (as a topic), death threats, murder, I’m sure I’m missing more. </spoiler> The book really doesn’t hold back in the slightest in jumping into ‘dark’ things, but they were all handled a bit clumsily for me.

The book being set in the 'farmlands' really doesn't matter either. It could have been a relatively small town anywhere in the USA and it would have likely all played out the same. The setting is not what makes book unique by any stretch of the imagination.

THE PLOT

The biggest problem with this story is it takes over 50% of the book for the book to even get started. The first 50% is fodder for the romance (and honestly, had this been a light-hearted romance between Becca (Main Character) and Ben (Love Interest), this book honestly would have probably landed closer to 4 star read. I loved the stupid banter between the two. I liked that they teased each other as a cover for their feelings (even if Becca was a d*ck about it for 90% of the time). I LOVED that they had an established history and that the buildup on their relationship had weight to it. It wasn’t perfect. Individually, I hated both characters multiple times throughout the story, and I wish we could have cut out at least half of Becca’s wishy-washy feelings about Ben, but overall the romance between the two (until the epilogue), I found kind of refreshing, in a way.

However, that’s about all the positives I have. The mystery aspect of this book is negligible. 90% of the book is Becca wiffle-waffling over Ben and her feelings. 4% is Becca stumbling upon Rose’s secrets. The final 6% is me rolling my eyes and trying not to throw my eReader across the room every time Becca made a stupid decision that probably would have ended a lot worse in real life.

MINOR SPOILERS TO FOLLOW (regarding Becca’s stupid decisions)

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Becca is an unlikeable character (I hope on purpose). She’s petty and whiny and stupid. SO STUPID. At one point Becca gets hit over the head and knocked unconscious for hours. Her parents are worried. Ben is worried. Becca? Not worried at all. Until she needs to be. She’s paranoid about shadows and sounds and whatever. But as soon as someone has information about Rose she sneaks out of her house, does another stupid thing and somehow ends up alive at the end of it.

Later, Becca is nearly killed. She only gets away through luck. Her parents are terrified that something is going to happen to her. They hardly let her out of their sight. Until the plot conveniently allows it to happen. (I might honestly be a bit rusty on the order things happened, but regardless, Becca has been put in a dangerous situation already and her parents are VERY WORRIED). Becca and her parents in a parking lot. Becca sees someone she wants to talk to (someone she absolutely knows she shouldn’t talk to because they are a bad person). Becca lies and tells her parents she needs to pee. Mom tries to go with Becca. Becca throws a mini-tantrum and her parents let her go. Becca mees this not good person OUTSIDE the building and her parents are just casually sitting in the car not paying her any attention. Like. I’m sorry. You daughter was almost murdered and you’re not going to watch for her to enter and exit the building? Okay. (Granted, this is her parents being idiots, but she was an idiot to talk to the person in the first place).

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END OF MINOR SPOILERS

The last few chapters of this are so high in the WTF-ery that I almost want to knock the book down a star just because of how it all played out. I’m spoiler tagging all of this, because seriously, it will ruin the book if you want to read it. <spoiler> Becca has learned the truth about what happened to Rose (no spoiler, because it’s honestly over the top stupid). SOMEHOW (magically) Ben is kidnapped. Yes, football playing, buff macho Ben is kidnapped by scrawny beanpole stoner and then magically helps said stoner? It’s a lot. I don’t get it. Stoner uses Ben to lure Becca to the place where Rose died. SOMEHOW Ben in his infinite rage (which is never really explained) has killed Rose’s killer. Stoner boy is weirdly gleeful, talking about how he got what he wanted, etc. (again, none of this makes sense). Then things happen and Stoner hits Ben over the head (almost killing him) and the Stoner shoots himself in the head. Yeah. So. Becca lies and says Stoner killed the dude and Ben is completely innocent AND ALIVE!!!

THEN. THEN THE EFFING EPILOGUE. Ben has amnesia. Doesn’t remember anything after Rose’s death. And Becca just DECIDES TO LIE TO HIM FOREVER ABOUT WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO STONER AND KILLER. But it’s okay because they love each other. Hope Ben doesn’t get his memories back…

Also, while Ben is in the hospital, Becca DEMANDS that his mom tells him the truth about what happened to Rose (that she had been killed). Becca’s dad even says that if Ben’s mom doesn’t tell him the truth he will. Becca says that SHE WILL BE THE ONE TO TELL HIM WHAT HAPPENED. The guy just WOKE UP FROM A COMA LIKE AN HOUR AGO. Let’s ask a doctor what the best plan of action is or something. Like, WTF? You’re just going to march into that poor guy’s room and just lay all that out there for him. Okay. Sure, Becca. </spoiler>

I can really see the potential in this book. I did enjoy moments of it. But it also felt like Becca never really had deep emotions about what happened. She cried and told us she felt empty (which would be expected) but It all felt a bit lacking. The story dragged quite a bit and if you cut out the romance you’d be left with maybe a couple thousand words of the mystery and maybe a couple hundred of ‘thriller’ material. The guilty people were guilty from the first time they were on the page. There was one ‘twist’ didn’t quite see coming, but I knew the people who had to play into it. Again, the book is pretty heavy handed with everyone involved (which is about 3 people), so there’s not a lot of room to throw suspicion around.

I wish Becca would have done more on her own to try to figure out what happened. Maybe Rose could have left a journal or clues or something about what she’d been up to and how it affected her. I wish Becca would have confronted Ben about things sooner rather than letting things fester for so long (and going back and forth on her feelings and even questioning his own feelings)

MINOR SPOILER; but Ben does confess his love for Becca at one point and she’s giddy about it, but then a few pages later she’s mentally accusing him of being a liar and using her. It honestly made my head hurt because all her reasoning was silly at best and stupid at worst. Anyway. If you’re writing a novel, please, just let your characters talk to each other. If someone is keeping a secret for the sake of keeping a secret, find a different way to reveal that information. And PLEASE STOP letting characters waffle on their feelings for multiple chapters of the same dang thing.

If a few things played out differently, I could have seen myself picking this up again, because I really did like the banter between Becca and Ben. But overall not something I’d read again.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Liars Beneath by Heather Van Fleet is a YA mystery and thriller that will appeal to fans of 13 Reasons Why and We Were Liars. The story revolves around 17 year-old Becca, whose best friend Rose recently died. Becca begins getting close to her best friend's older brother Ben, who has declared that he will find out the truth about what happened to Rose the night that she died. Will Becca and Ben find out the truth? How can they when everyone is keeping secrets?

Here is a gripping excerpt from Chapter 1, which is from Becca's point of view:

"Splinters tear at the undersides of my nails when I squeeze the church pew ahead of me. The raw skin burns, but I welcome the pain, needing it to distract me from the ache in my chest.
In front of me sits an old man who's scratching at his comb-over toupee... I huff, irritated because I can't see the front of the church around his oversized heada...not that I want to. Not when I know what's there.
Her coffin.
Her face.
The results of my biggest mistake."

Overall, The Liars Beneath is a YA mystery and thriller that is completely unputdownable. I couldn't stop reading until the end so that I could find out what happened to Rose. One highlight of this book is the nonstop action. The second half of this book is explosive scene followed by explosive scene, and it was refreshing to read a YA book that doesn't wait until the end to get exciting. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of YA mysteries, I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in January!

I found this to be an enjoyable read, keeping me on my toes throughout. The storyline was written well and flowed seamlessly. I look forward to reading more by this author!

The Liars Beneath is a great Young Adult Mystery book that had had me flipping through the pages to see what happened next. Becca is trying to deal with her best friend's suicide but can't get past it. When Rose's brother comes back home from college he's convinced his sister did not kill herself and convinces Becca to help him find her killer. As the two starts to unravel what really happened on the night of Rose's death they grow closer. But, someone else is watching as they put together the pieces and it might not end with a happily ever after for these two.

TW: sexual assault/harassment

I’m such a sucker usually for mysterious deaths and a crush on the best friend’s older brother trope but nothing about this worked for me.

In a small farming town in Iowa, our protagonist Becca is struggling hard in the aftermath of her best friend, Rose’s, death. While she does not initially think there was any foul play involved, Rose’s older brother Ben comes barrelling in trying to stir things up in his search for what happened the night of Rose’s death.

This book focuses literally on 2 things and 2 things only: a romance between Becca and Ben, and the mystery of Rose’s demise. Unfortunately, neither were done very well.

Becca has always been around Ben before he left town to go study in college, a rather prestigious athlete trying to escape the chains of this small town and their negligent mother. But before he left, Becca had the BIGGEST crush on him that fizzled into hate upon the smallest miscommunication. So what if he rejected her in a small way when she was 15? It doesn’t then permit the very rude way she interacted with him from then on, only insulting him to his face (or behind his back, for that matter, to Rose). Ben, for his part, played along with this new way of interacting with her, but I very much feel this was all on Becca for starting this completely unnecessary change in their previously cordial relationship.

I don’t dislike enemies to lovers, but this was poorly done in my opinion. I found it super hard for me to believe that she could so easily fall for Ben when there were so many more important issues at hand. I can potentially see that maybe he was holding a candle for her during the years since, but I don’t think this was LOVE by any means. Telling me you “love” each other does not make me feel it anymore than if you did not say it at all.

The mystery is also hardly a mystery in any sense of the word. Rose’s secrets, and there were a number, starts to unearth as Ben and Becca investigate. I saw the “twist” a mile away with the few characters that were actually introduced into the story. I could hardly believe how much was given away in literal conversations between Rose and Becca in the flashback chapters, or in the way certain characters were introduced to us. The only surprising thing in this book was the ending, and that was a bit of a complicated mess.

While I won’t spoil anything about the end, I feel epilogues aren’t meant for wrapping everything up so neatly into a bow. I’m also conflicted because the ending of the previous chapter before the epilogue was a mess, so I suppose it would be better to conclude with a little extra present. Yet, there were almost too many details given that made it feel like nothing was left to understand about these characters. That they would not live on beyond the ending given them. I feel the best characters are the ones that have been written in a way that their lives could still be up to interesting things even after the last page of the book has been flipped.

All this to say, a book with a really unlikable protagonist makes it really hard to get through. Becca also proves to be not the smartest cookie in the jar. She at one point brought her parents’ handgun to a situation she felt may warrant some protection…only to say she did not know how to use it. Like, you’re literally bringing a weapon to a potentially dangerous situation. Do you know how easily someone (aka the dangerous person(s) you’re meeting) could take that weapon from you and then actually know how to use it…on YOU?

So with neither main element working out well for me and a protagonist I couldn’t stomach for long periods of time, I can only hand this book one note of positivity: at least it was a short read to get through.

This was a fast read about a teenage dealing with the grief of losing her best friend and wondering if she really knew her as well as she thought. the grief and the feelings of betrayal felt real. The romance was just not believable to me, at least on his end. The bad guys were very bad and also not super believable. Overall, i liked it more in theory than in actuality

I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I obtained the ARC as a Read Now, as it sounded like an intriguing YA mystery/ thriller. I know that I'm not the intended audience as it is meant for teens and is written more for the reading level of a 15-18 year old. This isn't meant as an insult to the writing of the author but as an observance as a reader. The mystery is composed fairly well as the secrets of the newly departed best friend Rose, to Becca Thompson. She died in a fall and it is unclear if it was an accident , suicide or foul play.

The police don't want to investigate and Becca is in deep mourning. Rose had secrets which lead to her death and in flashbacks we see the events leading up to her death. Becca was encouraged to date Travis, a real douche bag with a creepy father, a teacher that seems inappropriate with female students. It gave me Heathers vibes with Christian Slater's J.D. and his dad. Now Rose's big brother Ben, a college football player wants answers and wants Becca to help him find out what happened to Rose. The best friends had a secret bucket list of dreams and dares. Did that get Rose killed? Ben and Becca have a teasing relationship that turns romantic as they search for answers and are warned away from seeking the truth. I didn't find their sleuthing to be a big part of the plot. Then Becca's life is endangered and the ending was kind of messy and chaotic. With the beginning hard to get into until about 1/3 in I almost DNF.
TW for sexual coercion, creepy teacher, drugs, physical assault, alcoholism.
2.75/5 ☆ rounded up to 3 stars. Release date 1/27/22.