This is a compelling tale of guilt, secrets, and a past tragedy. The protagonist, Amy Brewer, is complex and haunted, grappling with survivor's guilt as she seeks the truth about a past crime. Grey's writing creates a sense of mounting dread in the isolated cliffside setting. The novel effectively blends suspense and mystery, exploring themes like the burden of secrets and the enduring impact of the past. A gripping read for fans of suspense.

Unfortunately I was unable to download this book before the archive date, so I'm not able to leave a review. I look forward to reading and reviewing books by this author in the future.

This was a generic whodunnit by all means. But within the book it was a quick paced, enjoyable read.

My only qualms were areas that could have been more thoroughly explained or explored further which would have created a more in depth plot and added depth to characters.

Beyond that I really enjoyed the flipping back and forth between past and present that allowed for a fuller whole picture of the situation and how it progressed to the finale at the end.

This book had a lot of potential and was well written. I always love a good “who done it”. I feel like there was a lot of story that wasn’t told or could have been told differently and made the book a lot better, and I finished the book feeling unsatisfied.
Thank you Poisoned Pen Press, Stacie Grey, and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and honestly review this book.

The atmosphere is great creepy, tense, and keeps you on edge. There are lots of twists, and the story flips between past and present, slowly revealing secrets. If you love locked-room mysteries, you’ll probably enjoy this one.

That said, it drags a bit in the middle, and with so many characters, it’s easy to lose track of who’s who. But overall, it’s a fun, twisty read that keeps you guessing!

I really didn't enjoy this book it was really a struggle to finish! I enjoyed the concept it unfortunately fell flat with me!

I really liked the premise of this one, but the delivery fell flat. It was quick to read, so that was good, but there were so many characters, I had trouble keeping track.

I think this was generally a fun time! I enjoy locked room mysteries, but having the main character do investigating for her job made it feel a little more serious than I prefer. While there obviously aren't many options in a locked room mystery, I think that it wasn't too obvious and enjoyed seeing how everything came together in the end. I would recommend this book and read more from this author in the future!

She Left by Stacie Grey is a chilling, atmospheric psychological thriller that keeps readers on the edge of their seats from start to finish. The novel follows Amy Brewer, a woman haunted by the tragic events of the Memorial Day Massacre—an incident where all her friends died, and she was the only one to survive. Two decades later, Amy is invited to a remote cliffside house, along with ten others connected to the crime, for a documentary project about the murders. What begins as a reunion quickly turns into a deadly game of secrets and survival.

Grey crafts a tense, claustrophobic atmosphere as the group realizes they are being picked off one by one by a killer who knows more about the past than they let on. As a storm rages outside, Amy is forced to confront the traumatic memories of that fateful night, all while trying to decipher who in the house is responsible for the deadly events unfolding.

With a well-paced plot, sharp twists, and complex characters, She Left is an engaging tale of guilt, revenge, and betrayal. Fans of suspenseful thrillers and slow-burn mysteries will be hooked by the unraveling secrets and the gripping tension that builds toward a heart-pounding conclusion.

This started off with so much potential and it kept my interest for about half the book, then it just started to bore me. I didn't think the ending was shocking and I was so disappointed in that because I had held out hope that the ending of the book would save it for me. But alas, it was just okay. Thanks for the opportunity!

Imagine surviving, accidentally, by having walked away too soon, a massacre of your best friends who you also kind of hated. Twenty years later, you end up stack at another cabin, having to figure out once and for all what happened and having to face your own guilt. Meet She Left, which was more fun than I expected it to be. Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My apologies for the delay!

Amy left her friends in a cabin after a prank of theirs went too far. An hour later, all her friends are dead. Twenty years later, Amy goes by her middle name, Therese, and works for the FBI. She has been haunted by the death of her friends, never quite resolving her own issues with that night. Now, a journalist has invited her to a fancy cabin, planning to write an in-depth piece on the mystery. This is Therese's chance to face her past and clear herself of the guilt of having walked away. But nothing is as it seems when she arrives. Nine other people are there, both familiar and new, who all have links to the victims of the murder or the investigation that followed, but the journalist is nowhere to be found. When they wake up without their phones or car keys, and with a storm closing in, it is time to figure out what is going on now and what happened twenty years ago. I really enjoyed Therese as a main character. When we first encounter her teenage self in the Prologue, which shows her walking away from her friends, I hoped we wouldn't get continuous flashbacks and we didn't! Instead, we track an adult Therese as she tries to use her FBI experience to get to the bottom of what, exactly, is going on and why they have all been invited to the cabin. Therese feels like an adult and, while at times she is perhaps a little too calm, I felt like I understood her actions and her expertise made sense. The characters around it are a little vaguer, in the sense that they represent the expected/trope characters quite strongly. I had some sense of where the plot was going to go but did not feel disappointed at having those expectations met.

This is my first time reading Stacie Grey and I can definitely see myself picking up more books by her in the future. Like I said above, I was very glad that she stuck to a single timeline and not playing with the idea that maybe Amy/Therese is/was the murderer. Don't get me wrong, I like unreliable narrators, but only if it makes sense and is earned, and it would not have made sense in the context of this novel. Instead, Grey plays with her narrators. Most of She Left is narrated through Therese's POV, but every once in a while this is interrupted by a brief chapter from the perspective, or perhaps rather about, one of the other guests. They are not headed by the name of the character but rather by the "character they play", if that makes sense? I liked getting these extra little insights and they definitely added to the atmosphere. There is also a lot of fun mudslinging and back-and-forths between the characters once the bodies start dropping, with everyone seemingly accusing everyone else. This atmosphere was added to by the growing storm around them, adding a nice "running against the clock"-vibe to the whole story. Again, while the ending did not surprise me, I really enjoyed the journey there.

For what it was, She Left surprised me with how intrigued I was by it. It was on my mind in between reading spurts and coming off a really bad thriller, this reminded me how much fun the genre can be when an author knows how to keep their plot under control.

Locked room type mystery, where basically the friends/family and the lone survivor of the Memorial Day massacre are invited to like an Airbnb type place under the guise of a journalist, wanting to write an article about what they went through. Truly, nothing wrong with the storyline other than it just really didn’t do much for me. I’m not sorry that I read the book But definitely didn’t feel pulled in or have me thinking about the storyline when I wasn’t reading. I did feel it kind of hard to relate to the characters as there were several to keep up with and just not enough identifiable or relatable traits for me to keep them straight in my head. So I guess I would put that down to needed a little bit more character development to make it easier to follow.

Thanks to netgalley for my electronic advanced reader, copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Sadly ,I've had to do a soft dnf for now and come back to the book in the future. I think the writing was very good. Based on what I've read so far I would still recommend this to people I know would love this type of story.

Amy decides to leave a house party because her friends made her feel like she didn’t belong. So relatable. Who would want to stay somewhere, where they don’t feel like they belong. But within the next hour, her 5 friends end up dead. Twenty years later, a journalist invites 10 people with connections to the crime to a remote house. So many secrets. There is definitely someone in the house who knows more details about that night. This book will have you on the edge of your seat. It took a little while for me to get into it but once I did, I couldn’t put the book down!
Thank you NetGalley, Stacie, and Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC!

This was my first time reading Stacie Grey, and I received She Left as an ARC from NetGalley. The novel presents an intriguing premise with a classic locked-room mystery setup. The plot is engaging, with several twists and turns that keep the reader guessing. The character development, particularly of Amy, is well-handled. Her transformation from a traumatized teenager to a determined FBI agent adds depth to the story. However, some of the secondary characters felt underdeveloped, which made it harder to connect with them emotionally. The ending, while surprising, felt a bit rushed and left a few loose ends that could have been better resolved. Despite these flaws, the book's atmosphere and suspenseful narrative make it a worthwhile read. Overall, She Left is a solid mystery with a compelling storyline and a strong protagonist. While it had its shortcomings, it shows promise for Stacie Grey as a writer. I'm interested to see how her storytelling evolves in future works. #netgalley #sheleft

This is a classic kind of isolated thriller "who dun it?” with all its murder mystery goodness. She left begins with 16 year old Amy walking home in the dead of night after leaving a house party after a falling out with her friends. I like this one for its quick pace and familiar structure.

I love a good locked room mystery and this one was pretty good! It was a fast paced read and kept me entertained. I feel like I guessed who done it pretty early on, so it took out the shock for me, but still had a good time reading this!

This book has a great premise where when Amy was a teenager she left a party that she was at with her friends and shortly afterwards her friends were all murdered. Now in present day, she is invited with others to a remote house to talk about the events from that day. But then people start dying. This book and setup sounded like my type of book. I love books that play with Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None and love mysteries set in isolated locations. This was set to be a very me type of read. And while I did enjoy it, it wasn't as amazing of a reading experience as I had hoped that it would be. One of the struggles I faced was all of the different characters. The setup was that someone related in some way (family, friend, acquaintance) to one of the five murdered teenagers was brought to this house under the same pretenses of talking about what happened so long ago. What made it confusing or hard for me was keeping track of those individuals and who they related to from the past or how. Also, Amy herself in present day now goes by a different name which didn't help matters. There were also a few others there that were just related to the investigation in some way like a witness and the detective that worked the case that were there too. It took me entirely too long to get it all straight in my head of who was who which effected my enjoyment of the book to a certain extent. I did enjoy the isolated location, the struggles the characters faced when a storm hit, and the mystery behind it all when people started dying. I just felt that the difficulty in really getting to know the characters and relations to those from the past took away from the mystery behind it all. That's just my opinion though. Overall, I enjoyed this book but didn't love it like I had hoped to. 3.5 stars and I will probably round down on Goodreads.

Readers who enjoy mysteries or are as intrigued by that premise as I was should definitely give this book a try. I would definitely read more by this author and am looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next.

This is a lone survivor meets stuck together mystery that will thrill Agatha Christie fans. It really had an updated feel to a classic scenario with plenty of situational twists to have you blazing through the pages. The author sets an atmosphere of suspicion right from the start and carries that throughout her story.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishing company for this Digital Advanced Readers Copy! I thoroughly enjoyed it!