Thank you to Harper Perennial and netgalley for access to Where They Lie by Claire Coughlan. This thriller gave you all the thrills. I really enjoyed it.

Struggled to connect with the characters. Not a bad book, just not great for me personally. I hope it finds its audience. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read it.

I probably shouldn't have requested this novel in the first place because I'm not big on mysteries, but it sounded interesting and it was praised by no less than John Banville, so I figured I'd take a chance. And the storyline was in fact interesting, with a young woman reporter in 1968 Dublin looking into the discovery of the remains of an actress who disappeared some twenty years earlier. And lo, as the reporter’s investigation proceeds and in the way of such novels, she comes to find connections with her own life, including the details of her birth. Which isn't really giving away too much, because the truth is involved enough to defy easy guessing as to what's going on, though it also makes for my chief complaint about mysteries, that they can be convoluted enough, as this one is, to have you constantly paging back to refresh yourself on salient points. Still, as I say, the mystery is interesting, particularly for me with its look at attitudes about abortion at the time, both in the 1960s and 1940s. Evocative it was for me in that regard of the movie "Vera Drake," and indeed an exchange between the reporter and an abortionist was the most interesting thing for me about the novel – that and a heated exchange between the reporter and her mother about the daughter’s chosen profession. Easily interesting enough both were that they could have stood on their own as arresting domestic drama and not required the trappings of a mystery. Also, the writing is top drawer enough to make the novel more literary fiction than the standard mystery.

As much a murder mystery story as a look at a young woman’s struggle to succeed in a man’s world, Where They Lie is a beautifully atmospheric debut that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

Very creepy and atmospheric. Well done.

Heart pounding thriller that left me on the edge of my seat. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. Definitely one of the best books this year.

This book felt very...basic. Easy read, straightforward, but I felt like it lacked atmosphere and tension that thrillers greatly benefit from.

There really wasn't anything overtly wrong with this book, but it just felt very formulaic. I just could not really connect with the characters.

The story flowed well and the characters were well developed. I recommend this book and look forward to more from this author.


****Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review****

Thank you to the publisher for the arc!


This was an okay read, although I do believe it will resonate with a lot of people considering what’s going on in society today. However for me it just was kind of boring and the pacing was all over the place with a few plot holes