Great amd twisty thriller!

Positives:
The 22-year old initial mystery.
The goddess game and lasting friendshship of the original victims.
Naomi's tricky relationship with her alcoholic, hoarder dad.
The twists along the plot. and the fact that the girls were not 100% truthful about the day in the woods.
The title
The pace

Negatives:
Some of the main character's poor decision making skills

WOW! If you are looking for a crazy wild thriller, pick this up. Three girls go into the wood to believe in magic, but one is almost killed.

Years later, one of them wants to come clean. But once everything starts unraveling, you’ll never guess the end!!

A staggering thriller that’s both serpentine and stunning. This follows three best friends Naomi, Liv and Cass and the aftermath of being eyewitnesses in a trial that put a man in prison for life.

The story begins when the man their testimony helped put in prison for life dies of cancer and the three women are reunited for the first time in a long time. Each of them are feeling a bit restless and then one of the three girls winds up dead. Secrets and lies begin to be revealed both past and present.

This thriller did have a mental health element as many do and I feel that this is one of the better ways I’ve seen it captured in fiction where it didn’t feel predatory or fall into demonization and stereotyping.

Overall I really, really enjoyed this book and think if you too like thriller novels you should definitely check it out!

5 stars

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars. This started pretty slow but I just knew something big was waiting under the surface. Naomi is still working through her childhood tragedy. She’s distant and cold but can lean on her two best friends. There are secrets from that night and they’re starting to unravel. How much trauma can one person endure before it’s too much? The second half really flies by and the ending was great. Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC

This was a very well thought out slow burn suspenseful novel. I love the trope of friends revisiting an event in the past and watching the details unfold in this book was enjoyable. The twists were not predictable and the ending was very satisfying.

I wrote about this on The StoryGraph and on GoodReads with links sent to Twitter and to Mastodon. I also reviewed this for AudioFile Magazine.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5337347039

Naomi, Olivia, and Cassidy were eleven the summer they started playing The Goddess Game in the woods. They were having the summer of their lives pretending the be goddesses and practicing rituals until the girls were attached and Naomi was stabbed seventeen times. By some miracle she survived and identified her attacker. She went on with her life, trying her hardest to move on and forget about what happened until her attacker died in prison and suddenly Olivia wants to tell the truth about what happened....but what truth does she want to tell since they didn't lie......right??

Oh my god!!! I could not stop reading! This is one of the best books I have read in a while. I was absolutely blown away by the twists and turns! This is a dark, like dark dark, psychological thriller that is character driven. The story is told through Naomi's point of view, with a duel timeline between the summer of The Goddess Game leading up to and after the accident and present day. I really enjoyed Naomi as the narrator and found her really reliable which isn't necessarily the norm with psychological thrillers.

As soon as I finished, I went to look up Kate Alice Marshall in hopes to read other books by her and found out that this was her debut book. And wow!! What a debut! I will for sure be reading her next book without a doubt! I loved this book so much, I bought a physical copy!

If you're looking for a dark, twisty, mind blowing psychological thriller, this one is for you!!

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

This book was extremely good. I felt the characters are relatable. The story caught my attention from the first chapter. I felt like I was on a wild goose chase for a quick minute because there are so so many twists and turns. I really did like the clever plot. I look forward to reading more stories from this awesome author.

I loved this book more than I expected to! A lot of books have predictable endings but this wasnt one of them. Everyone should read this book

I really enjoyed this book - it was one that I took with me in my car when I left the house so I could read it any chance I got. Hooked in the first twenty pages, twists throughout, thought I had it figured out 4-5 times and I never ended up guessing correctly. Always enjoy a book that isn't easy to crack. Would recommend!

Twenty-two years ago, 11-year-old best friends Naomi, Cass, and Olivia frolicked through the forests of the Pacific Northwest, playing their magical, wondrous Goddess Game. But the magic stopped when Naomi was attacked, stabbed 17 times while Olivia and Cass hid in fear. Miraculously, Naomi lived and was able to identify her assailant, ultimately putting away a serial killer who had previously murdered six women. But now that serial killer has died in prison, and Naomi has returned to her hometown to reckon with the events of two decades ago...because Naomi, Cass, and Olivia weren't telling the truth back then.

What Lies in the Woods includes some of my favorite plot elements: serial killers, verdant and menacing forests, the feral savagery of girlhood. I am absolutely going to read any book that includes those things, and there is a lot about this one to like. Kate Alice Marshall's writing is textured and perceptive, rich with atmosphere and fascinating imagery. This is a well-composed and intricate thriller that kept me engaged from start to finish, even in the slower-paced sections. I can't quite say that I liked any of the characters -- even the narrator, Naomi -- but I did feel like their actions and motivations made sense in the context of who they were.

This is Marshall's first novel for adults, and unfortunately, that shows. It's a common issue with YA writers making the jump to adult fiction; the writing is at times overwrought and hyperbolic, with characters often experiencing their emotions very melodramatically. Some of the characters felt immature at times, especially during the novel's big reveals.

Ultimately, the main issue that took away from my enjoyment of What Lies in the Woods is that I found it to be really predictable. This is definitely a "me" problem and not a problem with the book itself; I do think it's clever and there are some interesting reveals...it's just kind of hard for a psychological thriller to surprise me these days. I spent a lot of the book just waiting for what I knew was going to happen, to happen. As my kids would say, at this point it's not hard for me to spot when something is "sus."

Overall What Lies in the Woods was a decent enough thriller, but probably not a book that will stick with me for long.

Fast paces and well written. While I guessed a "who," there was just enough of a question to keep me intrigued until the end. I enjoyed this story very much, and would absolutely read more from this author.

A great thriller that leads you to people you think did it but completely turns around in a great whodunnit mystery!t I loved the style of this writing and the friendships that were revealed over the course of the book! Highly recommend!

Marshall's These Fleeting Shadows was one of my favorite unexpected reads of the last year, and I was SO excited for this one. While it didn't absolutely enrapture me quite as much as These Fleeting Shadows, I still had a lot of time with What Lies in the Woods. It's more Gillian Flynn than Shirley Jackson/Lovecraft, but that's not inherently a bad thing. This wasn't the book I expected it to be, and the pacing was a bit off (too slow to start, too quick to end), but I still really enjoyed it, and am looking forward to Marshall's next book!

What a great story! I will be honest, I was not immediately hooked and had put it down for a bit. But when I came back to it it scratched an itch I didn’t know I had. There’s a great unreliable narrator, and man oh man did the red herrings in this book get me. I love that I was constantly second guessing who was really to blame, and who could be trusted (spoiler alert: trust no one!!). I really enjoyed this story and feel like it’s a bright light in a super saturated “murder girls” market.

The atmosphere of What Lies in the Woods makes it a compelling thriller. I enjoyed reading this book. I was constantly trying to figure out who was involved and what was about to happen. I never put the pieces together. This is an excellent book by Kate Alice Marshall and my first one by here also. This one is very twisty and while some of it I saw coming, other things I didn't. I don't want to say too much about it other than grab it if you can. It's a bit darker and contains more mature elements than her YA books, and I really enjoyed my time with it. It's also casually queer as Naomi is bisexual. The audio narration is fantastic, and I just wanted to keep listening to the end! I received an audio review copy via Net Galley, all opinions are my own.
*Content warnings include death, violence, injury, suicidal ideation, possible suicide, gun violence, attempted sexual assault of a child, references to child abuse, infidelity, depictions of hoarding.

3.5 stars

I loved the beginning of What Lies in the Woods, Marshall captures that feeling of being a young girl who is on the cusp of becoming a teen and knowing friendship can change. As someone who spent summers in the woods with my friends at that age, that part drew me in…

The twists at the end were, eh… one was pretty obvious and the other just didn’t work for me… but that’s just my opinion.

Overall still a good mystery and thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for a review.

Three best friends spent their eleventh summer in a world of make believe in the woods near their homes. When one of the girls is violently attacked one day, their testimonies sent a serial killer to prison. Or did they. When the girls get together as adults, secrets start to come out. What will they do to stop them?

Highly recommend this for anyone looking for a thriller they won’t be able to put down. This book will leave you constantly wondering who can be trusted.

Thanks to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for the ARC in exchange for a fair review.

This is my first Kate Alice Marshall book, and I can confidently say this won't be my last. I am usually not a huge fan of thrillers, but this book was amazing. I could not see the twists and turns coming and I really loved the main character. I felt like I was discovering everything along with her and the pacing was excellent.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys thrillers with twists and turns you won't see coming.

I thought that this one started off a little slow. I don't really know what I was expecting going in and I must confess that Thrillers aren't my normal genre. I really loved the concept. I am always a sucker for a "is this the right person/lapse in memory" scenario. I did really dig that the characters were flushed out thoroughly, and I don't feel like the twists and turns were too predictable. I would probably read another book by the author, even if thrillers aren't my jam.