I adored The Night Swim so this was a given that I needed to read this sequel. I think in certain respects this was better or equal to The Night Swim. The plot was really interesting and I found myself flying through this book to see what Rachel would discover.

However, I did end up scoring it one star lower than the Night Swim for two reasons. The story was a bit more linear than I was expecting. I kept waiting for a big reveal to happen and it really never came. Also, I found this lacked the amount of podcast content that I have come to expect from the first book. Since, we follow a podcaster, I would have preferred to see more.

I still had a great time with this book and can't wait to see what Rachel gets up to next if there is another sequel in the works.

**Read an ARC from Netgalley Rating : 4 Stars

Megan Golden  is back with her second book in the Rachel Krall series. This book can be read as a standalone, but you may want to check out the fist book anyway. It's a great mystery/ thriller that will leave you on the edge of your seat. When the FBI summons Rachel to talk to an inmate, Rachel's visit does not go as planned. The final word from the inmate seems to be threatening Rachel, and an FBI agent  believes that Rachel's life is in danger. This does not stop Rachel, though as she is determined to get to the bottom of things. Rachel dives deep into the influencer world to uncover the truth. If you are looking for a good mystery/thriller definitely pick this one up.

First things first: I love Megan Goldin. She will always be an autopsy author to me. This book wasn't nearly as strong as The Night Swim but it did keep me engaged. I think this may be a situation where "it's not you, it's me". I wasn't really the demographic for this as I am not interested in Creator Culture. The plot was decent despite my disinterest regarding influencers.

4 stars!

Megan Goldin's "Dark Corners" is a gripping, thrilling novel that I could not put down. It is fast-paced, extremely well written, intriguing, and kept me guessing until the very end. It's full of drama, death, and a unique commentary about podcasting, our society's obsession with true crime, and influencer culture. I hope there is going to be another Rachel Krall novel because I will absolutely read it. As Rachel attempts to discover what's going on with a soon to be released prisoner by the name of Terence Bailey and his possible connection to six murdered women. Bailey has never had one visitor in all the time he has been in prison, except for a few days before he set to be released when a van-life influencer named Madison Logan visits him. It's a race against the clock as the FBI ask for Rachel's help after she is roped into the case. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time I read this book. Please give us more Rachel Krall, Megan!!

Thank you to NetGalley, Megan Goldin, and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own. I was not compensated for my review.

This one didn't quite work for me. It was well-written, but I didn't find Rachel as likeable as I did in The Night Swim. Plus everything to move the plot forward was SO convenient for her. I enjoyed the FBI agent, Joe Martinez, as an intriguing character - but he shared WAY too much info from the investigation with Rachel. It just wasn't believable and I wasn't as invested in these characters (plus there were a lot of characters to keep track of).

I'm giving this book 2.5 stars but rounding up to 3 stars here. Not my favorite, and I will say I really loved Stay Awake when I read it last year. The Night Swim was just okay for me, so maybe the Rachel Krall series just isn't for me.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the copy in exchange for my honest review.

Megan Goldin is one of my go-to authors for fast-paced thrillers that are perfect for a long flight or to relax on the beach with. Dark Corners has enough twists and turns to keep the pages turning and her stories have a freshness often missing in this genre. I particularly like her character building. Very entertaining.
#netgalley

I enjoyed this book, but it felt a little heavy handed. The convenience of the influencer conference, her connecting with just the right people, who then opened up to this strange and told everything...felt too easy to me. However, it was a very readable story, and I finished it.

I enjoyed this book and likes the social media influencer drama. It had me guessing and gasping throughout the book. Thanks so much for this advanced copy! Megan Goldin is a great author.

I really enjoyed Megan Goldin's The Night Swim, so seeing this was the next story in the Rachel Krall podcast series, I was definitely interested in reading more. I actually really like these both (The Night Swim and Dark Corners) as audiobooks because of the podcast elements. It gives the feel of actually listening to the podcast (though I'm not much of a podcast listener, I do enjoy it in a book).

I did feel that the way Dark Corners was structured was a bit more confusing than in The Night Swim (though it's been a minute since I'd initially read it). Throughout Dark Corners, the podcast elements weren't aligning with the timeline in which Rachel was learning the information, so that just seemed a little weird to me. I would have liked to have seen things make a little more sense in terms of how it was put together.

I liked the bit of romance, and it did play an integral role in the story itself, but it also felt a little odd and awkward for the rest of the storyline.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and would enjoy it as a tv series too - there were just some intricacies that were a little off-ish to me.

Rachel Krall, the podcaster from the novel The Night Swim, is back and this time the FBI needs her help. What does a soon-to-be released prisoner, a social media influencer, and a disturbing tattoo of a snake eating its own tail have in common? Rachel will soon discover the connections that weaves the threads together when she attends BuzzCon, an influencer convention that reveals more mysteries and uncovers a monster hiding in plain sight.

Rachel is smart, saavy, and tenacious. I would have liked a few more chapters of her podcast post-discovery as those really helped to build the tension in the story. The commentary about the lives and lies behind social media content, and the cat and mouse plot really kept me entertained.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was amazingly good. Seriously, I can't say enough about how much I loved it! Megan Goldin has got to be the best writer of suspense thrillers right now. Everything she writes is perfection, but this Rachel Krall series is off the charts spectacular.

In Dark Corners, the follow up to The Night Swim true crime podcaster Rachel Krall is in the path of a serial killer. She's asked my the FBI to help in the case of a missing social media influencer. She soon finds out so much more is going on.

I thought this book was intriguing and super suspenseful. I was completely absorbed in the story and couldn't put it down. I hope there's more to come in this series.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The influencer angle was interesting but really didn’t do it for me. I found those characters to be vapid and boring. I think the plot was unique and the twists well done. However, this one didn’t really work for me and I struggled to finish it. I enjoyed the ending but getting there was a bit of a slog.

I think when people ask me who my favorite authors are Megan Goldin will join that very short list. I find her books to keep me engaged, which seems to be more difficult these days.

I read the Night Swim a while back and I often brain dump books unless they rate extremely high with me, so I was worried I would not remember enough for this read, but that was not the case. To be honest, you could not have read Night Swim and still not skip a beat reading Dark Corners. But, I do recommend both books overall.

This book, as mostly told from Rachel's point of view or the killer's, follows many stories that the reader understands all have to come together. First there is an inmate that is about to be released that could be connected to a string of disappearing women/murders, then an influencer disappears, and Rachel is brought in for some reason as a host of a popular podcast. This book does delve into the 'influencer world' quite a bit, which has turned some people off of it. I ~didn't mind it~ but it was probably the least enjoyable part of the book. Overall, I understood they all have to come together in the end, and felt as though I only got there maybe twenty pages before Rachel did.

The 'first' book in the series, Night Swim, focused a decent bit around Rachel's podcast, but that is not as present in Dark Corners, so if that was one aspect you enjoyed about that read, this one might not be your favorite. I also think the 'killer' has a distinct characteristic that helped the book come to a close (as in "Scooby doo putting it together based on this one thing Rachel gathers throughout the book that we as the reader already know) made me feel like "really,???", and not in a great way. There were a couple "just the shark" vibes, but again it is **fiction** for a reason.

Overall I enjoyed the pace of the book with its multiple (but not too many) twists and turns. If someone asked me for a recent thriller I would definitely recommend Dark Corners or any of Megan Goldin's other books for a great read!

Thank you to NetGalley, St Martin’s Press for the free digital copy in return for my honest review.

I’ve really enjoyed Megan Goldin’s other books, and Dark Corners was pretty solid.
I enjoyed the setting of an influencer conference, and especially the different segments (the RV girlies, the glam girlies).
There was just something missing here that made me care. If the story had been less well-written, I would have put it down and not come back.

Megan Goldin has another hit on her hands with book #2 in the Rachel Krall series. It would also be fine to read as a stand alone. A fantastic fast paced psychological thriller!

I didn't love the plot in this one like I loved The Night Swim which came before Dark Corners. The subject matter felt extremely different, which is good on the one hand because it's a series of separate stories following the same character, but it felt a little odd after the events that happened in the first book. I also didn't really care for the romance that happened in this book. The plot was generally a fun time but not a favorite for me. I will continue reading from this author but I'm not sure about in this series.

Megan Goldin is an auto-buy author for me since her very first book. While Dark Corners is billed as the second book in a series, I’d say it reads more like a standalone book featuring the same lead, true crime podcaster Rachel Krall. The first book we saw Rachel Krall in was Night Swim and I recommend it (fair warning, it does cover on more sensitive topics than this book), though you don’t need to read both books to enjoy them.

In Dark Corners, Rachel Krall becomes involved in a new case helping to search for a popular social media influencer who disappeared live on stream. Absolutely gripping

The opening chapters start with a fascinating twist. Podcaster Rachel Krall is called in by the FBI to interview a man who is set to be released from prison. At first, Rachel is confused why they are asking for her help, but it soon becomes clear that Terence Bailey has a lot more to him than the breaking and entering charge that locked him up. Law enforcement suspects him of murdering at least six people. Even more troubling, days before his release he was visited by a popular social media influencer, Madison Logan.

I won’t spoil it, but there is a reason Rachel was called to assist on a case about two very different people whom she has never heard of. Terence Bailey may be suspected of being a serial killer, but he was never convicted making him less known outside of his geographic region. Madison Logan had inexplicably visited him just before her disappearance. Meanwhile there are few people who are less interested in influencer culture than Rachel Krall. Despite hosting one of the most popular true crime podcasts out there, Rachel has carefully scrubbed her face from the public eye after her last case sent floods of convicted prisoners her way hoping for her to cover their case. She hasn’t heard of Madison Logan before, so why is she being asked to talk to the FBI?

The more Rachel looks into the missing Madison Logan, the stranger the young influencer seems. Despite having a huge following, beauty, and charisma, Madison seems to not exist outside of her social media account. Her content contains no photos of her with family, friends, or a significant other.

One aspect of the book that I enjoyed was learning more about the influencer culture, as Rachel Krall goes “undercover” at BuzzCon. Rachel uses a fake influencer account called @runninggirlrachel to be present at these necessary events without disclosing her true identity and opening herself up to unwanted attention or safety concerns. The world of BuzzCon exposes the dark side of influencer culture, where competing with others for opportunities and followers is thinly veiled by joining exclusive pods of influencers to promote one another.

After learning about the request for her to speak with Terence Bailey, it’s clear Rachel is in danger, especially if her identity is revealed. The events of the mystery unfold rapidly, and each new twist and turn heightened the tension. These are two seemingly separate cases that are linked due to the visit at the prison, but no one can find a link between Madison and Terence.

I enjoyed this psychological thriller even more than I enjoyed The Night Swim. Each book works as a standalone, and there is very little linking the two other than the main character Rachel Krall (and of course, the global spotlight she gained through her work covering the case in the prior book). Readers can easily read the books in either order.

I loved the mixed-media format of the book. The podcast episodes intersperse between the main events of the novel. If you do the audio format of this book, the podcast episodes enhance the story by using different sound techniques and voices for the characters. Rachel is highly detailed and talented at her job. Rachel is professional, empathetic, and sharp. There is a mystery narrator who becomes more relevant as the book goes on. A small romance subplot definitely will please those who are always rooting for love!

I was hoping for more. I felt this book really dragged on and on. Her first book I could not put down!

More like a 3.5.
I really enjoyed the first 25% and the last 25% of the book. The middle seemed a little repetitive, but I really love Rachel's character.
I didn't like this one as much as Night Swim, but it was still a good mystery. I was really engaged the last 20% of the story to find out what was going to happen to the very end!

so good! I loved this sequel it had a lot of suspense and I could not put it down. this is great for thriller fans