Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for this audio ARC of What Lies In The Woods by Kate Alice Marshall.

“You lied on the stand and sent the wrong man to jail. What I want to know is why?”

What it’s about:
Naomi Shaw and her two best friends are mischievous eleven year olds who come up with a game- The Goddess Game- that they take very seriously and makes them believe in magic. Until one day when Naomi is violently attacked in the woods and the three girls testify that they saw the man who hurt her. 20 years later, Naomi comes home to visit her friends in the small community where they grew up and the secrets that they’ve spent their lives keeping begin to unravel. What had they really found in the woods that summer and who really hurt Naomi? The truth is not what you’d expect.

My thoughts:
So this book was really, really entertaining. I listened to it around the house and on my drive to and from work. It was so hard to pause it knowing I wasn’t going to be able to find out what happens for the next 13 hours while I was working! No one in this book is who you believe or expect them to be. Every time I thought I had the book figured out, I was wrong. So many twists in this book, it kept me dying to know what happens next! The seriousness and darkness of the Goddess Game seemed unrealistic to me, until I remembered what it was like being that age and having a friend convince me that she was a witch with magical powers. When you're so young, you're so gullible, trusting, and as evidenced by this story, also easily manipulated. At so many points, I was annoyed that Naomi and the others wouldn’t tell the truth, but by the end I realized that all of their truths were different. It took a lot to get to what really happened and went through so many different characters, which I normally don't love, especially in an audiobook since I can't go back and visually reread their names, but all of the characters in this book flowed really well together and made a clear picture of the whole plot.

Publication date is set for January 17th, 2023!
#WhatLiesInTheWoods #NetGalley

This book was so good! I have not read anything by Kate Alice Marshall previously and this book was not on my radar at all. However, I received a widget from Macmillan Audio to listen to the book and I am so glad I accepted. Thank you!!

I enjoyed getting to know the characters in this one and I felt like the scene was set well. Although I had an initial idea as to what was going on behind the scenes, I did suspect most of the characters of something at some point in time. I really like the way the story unfolded and bits and pieces were divvied out.

As I mentioned earlier, I listened to the audio of this book and it was narrated by Karissa Vacker. She did an excellent job bringing the story to life. I've listened to her work before and was happy to listen to more. I can certainly recommend the audio version.

I really enjoyed the combination of Marshall's storytelling and Vacker's narrating. I'll be interested in reading more of Marshall's work and if it's narrated by Vacker, even better.

First of all, I love the cover of this book. It pops in a way that makes you want to single it out at the store, and take it right home to read. The narrator is also one of my favorites! Easy to listen to, does a fairly descent male voice, allowing you to understand and follow conversations much better.

This book has a lot of moving parts. Best friends Naomi, Cassidy and Olivia have been friends since grade school. Since popular Cassidy decided that outsiders Naomi and Olivia would be her best friends. They have been through thick and thin, even a near deadly attack the year they were eleven, and hiding some questionable things from their parents and the police. When Naomi comes back years later, both to meet with Cass and Liv, and try to sort things out with her father, she is drawn into a mystery that only she can solve.

Overall, this book was really well written, and it pulls you in as well as any mystery/thriller does. Would highly recommend, especially the audiobook!!

5⭐
Wow wow wow!!!
For an adult debut that was magnificent. I listened to the audio mostly, but also read my physical arc copy. I loved the narrator. She really gave depth, and visualization to Naomi's character. You have small town, past and present mystery, and so many twist and turns. I even gasped at one reveal. A very quick, and satisfying read. I think Kate Alice Marshall just became an auto buy author for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flat Iron Books for a copy of this novel in exchange for a honest review.

A great book from start to finish. I thought I knew where the story was going, but there were still very interesting plot twists that threw me and added interest and excitement. The narrator is also excellent and did a great job pulling me into this dark and twisty thriller. Will highly recommend!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

Thank you to Kate Alice Marshall, MacMillan Audio, and NetGalley for a gifted audio arc of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. The narrator, Karissa Vacker, is awesome, and has become my favorite. I will start buying books simply because she narrates them.

Review trigger warning: SA

In WHAT LIES IN THE WOODS, the story question, quite mysterious in origin, is actually, "Name the only thing (or person, for that matter) that doesn't lie in the woods." Naomi, the morally questionable fmc, is the adult consequence of a child survivor of a violent attack when she was only ten years old. Her two best friends witnessed the violence, and they all three barely survived. Naomi is horribly self loathing-- blames herself for everything, all the way down to her own molestation and sexual assault. She makes for a superbly unreliable narrator in the very best sense-- plus she's a loose cannon and likely target.

One of the things I enjoyed most about this book was the form. While always heading in the ultimate direction, and therefore satisfying, the narrative often shifted about as a result of Naomi's habit of asking internal questions about what's going on in the story. So meta!

I thought the ending was a little convoluted. I kept having to rewind my audio because I thought I missed something. But I was really surprised! This was a good book and I look forward to more from this author.

Rating: 🔪🔪🔪🔪.5 / 5 stabby mcstabbers
Recommend: Yes, for sure!
Finished December 2022
Read this book if you like:
🕵‍♀️ Mysteries
👮 Thrillers
🤷‍♀️ Unreliable narrator
👻 Haunted woods and people
🏘 Small town secrets
❤️‍🩹 Toxic romantic relationships

If the person you put in prison, didn’t do it, but was a bad person, would you feel guilty about it? Would you try to clear their name, knowing they were still a horrible person and had committed other crimes?!!! This is the question I kept asking myself through the whole book.
What Lies In The Woods is a story about childhood friends, and their shared horrific trauma that changed their lives. I quickly got caught up in their adventures in the woods, since I grew up playing almost the exact games in my woods. This is why most thrillers that take place in the woods screw me up. I never took into account that there may be others in the woods with me…and like these girls, I had friendships that I thought were eternally bound together, no matter what. It’s really scary how intense kids can be.
I thought this book was nonstop thrilling with quite a few turns in the story. Things aren’t as they seem, and play out great. I was piecing it all together at the same time as I was questioning everything.
As an audiobook this book nailed it. The narrator was on point, her emotions thick in her voice. She added that heightened anxiety that played through the whole book. I’m sure the book was great in print, but it was amazing on audio.

While you can see most of the things that are gonna happen from up the road (not exactly a mile away), I was still into the story. I saw most of the twist coming but wasn't exactly right on how it went. All around good audiobook! One of my top ones of this year.

Karissa Vacker is one of my top female narrators. She sucks me into the story and does a great job speaking. And her man voice is pretty good too.

Thank you to Amber Cortes, a publicist at Macmillan, for suggesting I listen to this widget!

I loved this. I absolutely adored the childhood friendship. I'm a big fan of f'ed up friend groups, and this group was no different. The girls were younger than normal, and the unique wildness before boys/popularity/parties of middle and high school worked so well for this story. There were unique dynamics between each of the girls, both when young and as adults, and the weird painful, supportive friendships are so well done. I loved the details of the goddess game they played - it both showed their unique, creative side, and was beautifully creepy considering some of the details. The very first line of the book made me role my eyes, because I thought it was setting up a pretentious, adult-mourning-lost-youth type of dynamic, but every beat after that was spot on. I feel like I could crawl into the cave they spent so much time in and deposit my own trinkets there.

Naomi was a satisfying protagonist as well. Her scars added to her character and played a realistic role in the story and in people's reactions to her. Her relationship with her dad was surprisingly well done as well, and despite being a typical prickly heroine, she had certain elements that kept her from being cliche. I liked Liv and Cass as well, both as their own characters and in the role they play in the story.

The mystery aspect was also well done. It didn't quite go in the direction I expected, and yet was extremely satisfying every step of the way. Also, the double meaning of the title is great. I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator fit perfectly, and the production was solid.

I'd highly recommend this. The childhood friendship dynamics, their weird wildness, made this stand out above many other books in this vein, and the mystery lacks nothing.

Intense. Narrator was perfect for the story and did a great job of infusion just the right amount of emotion, edginess, and tension into the telling. This had a bit of a slow start for me, but once it got going, I couldn't stop - lots of surprises I was not expecting. Just when I thought I had things figured out, another twist would hit me. This one definitely gets filed as "psychological thriller" and absolutely fits the bill. Not a lot of likeable characters, but their flaws are varied and believable enough to keep you invested. When this finally reached a conclusion, I'm pretty sure I was out of breath and my heart was racing! A few trigger warnings to be aware of: suicidal ideation, thoughts, and attempts; childhood trauma; violence; some allusion to sexual assault. In general though, this gets a strong 4.5 stars - the only complaint I have is I felt like it was slightly over-edited - I would have liked a little more detail re: certain events (how exactly they happened to just clarify for better understanding) and some relationships to better solidify the dynamic between some characters. I wouldn't have minded this being a bit longer to add some of that additional detail. But overall, highly recommend for fans of thrillers.

I received this advanced copy of an audiobook from Macmillan Audio. From the very beginning I was hooked. It follows 3 girls at present time with flashbacks when they were children. the events that occured...secrets kept. A man sent to prison, but was he the one who was guilty of the crimes he was convicted of?
Recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC to review!
Rating (on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being excellent)
Quality of writing: 4
Pace: 4
Plot development: 3
Characters: 3
Enjoyability: 3
Narrator: 3
Ease of Reading: 4

Overall rating: 3 out of 5

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

What really lies in the woods? So many questions! I was shocked when the final reveal occurred, which is hard to do. I listened to the audiobook and thought the narrator did a fantastic job.

I can't wait to read what the author writes next!

Thank you to the author, publisher, narrator and Net Galley for providing a free e-audio version of this title in exchange for my review.

I'm an outlier with this one, I really didn't get into the story at all. I don't really understand the desire to hear about the survivors of serial killers - seems like there are quite a few of them in recent years, and it's really not my thing. I don't think this was a title I actually requested, I think it was offered from the publisher, because I tend to not request books like this anymore.

The characters feel very immature, very angry, and in the need of a really good therapist.

2 stars for 'it was ok'

Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls’ testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes.

And they were liars.

A small town with lots of secrets! Naomi returns to her hometown and realizes there are a few loose ends on her almost murder she really didn’t remember. Who is lying and what is the truth?! The action starts to pick up as the story goes on and I was surprised with the twists. Naomi was flawed, but her past was so traumatizing you can’t help but root for her.

I was hooked when I learned about “the goddess game” the girls played in the woods as kids. I thought this one was creepy and the spooky season read I needed in October!

Wonderful narrator that helped create that eerie vibe!

3.5
Something dark and emotionally haunting happened in the woods 20 years ago, but it's all been taken care of by putting the serial killer in prison. Life has moved on for the young women that were involved and the ones that survived...but has it really?

This story revisits the case as a new break happens in the case years later. We flashback to the past to see what happens and the story retells and unfolds to the reader. The twists and turns were good, but I found myself wanting.

I think my issue is an overabundance of books lately about angsty and irresponsible late teens/early college kids and the murder mystery they've been involved in. It seems to be a plot point that has been done over and over with the adults that don't clue into the truth of these reckless and rash youngsters. I'm ready for a new story plot for a thriller.

Karissa Vacker, the narrator does a fantastic job in her reading of the story. She is becoming a staple narrator for thrillers and mysteries and I'm ready for the next one!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the advance audiobook.

What Lies in the Woods is an excellent audiobook. Within the first few chapters, I couldn't bear to turn it off, wanting to squeeze in just a bit more so I could see where the story was going.

The writing itself lent very well to a thriller full of twists and turns that even a seasoned thriller reader may not be able.to predict.

The narrator did an excellent job at portraying an unreliable narrator who felt compelled to learn the truth. It was also very easy to distinguish between the different characters being portrayed.

WHAT LIES IN THE WOODS
Kate Alice Marshall

22 years ago, Naomi, Cassidy, and Olivia went into the woods and came out changed forever. Naomi was attacked and her testimony helped convict a serial killer. Now her attacker is dead, and Naomi is left with more questions than answers.

For the most part, I enjoyed my time listening to the audiobook of WHAT LIES IN THE WOODS. It is narrated by the awesome narrator Karissa Vacker and she does a magnificent job with this book.

The book is shifty. Reading it feels like you’re walking through a fun house and the enjoyment of the experience is merely being off balance, reaching for things that aren’t there, and striving for homeostasis.

The plot is simple, and the characters are showing their cards for the most part. It’s easy to see motives and guess the next steps.

The book is extremely quick, and Marshall is not waiting around for you to catch up. She does a unique thing with point-of-view- that takes skill, and I appreciated that it was executed flawlessly.

WHAT LIES IN THE WOODS comes out in January, which is right around the corner. If you’re looking for a great thriller to add to your list consider this one. I thought it was great!

Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the advanced copy!

WHAT LIES IN THE WOODS…⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

What Lies in the Woods is a fantastic thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end. Kate writes in a way that has you fully immersed in the book and go through a roller coaster of emotions. LOVED it!

In 2014, in a town 45 minutes away from me, three girls walked into the woods and two walked out. Which is, coincidentally, how this book starts. And that isn’t the only correlation to the Slender Man stabbings. With this retelling, What Lies in the Woods is such a solid thriller, and one of the twists made me audibly gasp, and to top it off, the ending was so damn satisfying. It was so, so good.