Set in a small town marked by tragedy and mystery, the story revolves around the disappearance of four young girls who have been lost for 24 years, and the lake at the town played an important role in both the plot and the chilling mood of the story. The place amplifies an eerie and suspenseful vibe.

What I liked about this book was that, as the protagonist unearthed the secrets revolving around her older sister and the connections to the missing girls, it felt like we're also part of the investigation team and also wanted to unveil what really happened to the lost girls. I didn't expect the conclusion of the book, and it literally blew my mind, like, how is that possible, and why didn't I think about that?

Overall, "The Lake of Lost Girls" is a compelling read for fans of thrillers and character-driven mysteries, which offers a blend of suspense, emotional depth, and psychological insight.

Katherine Greene (pen name) for bestselling authors, A. Meredith Walters and Claire C. Riley. returns following their debut, The Woods are Waiting, with an enthralling haunting mystery, THE LAKE OF LOST GIRLS. A cold case is reopened that threatens to unearth long-buried secrets, told in alternating timelines infused brilliantly with podcast clips and more for a superb, twisty, thrilling whodunit!

About...

1998: Female students are going missing at Southern State University in North Carolina. Jessica Fadley suddenly disappears.

Twenty-four years later, Jessica's sister Lindsey is desperately seeking answers. She turns to Ten Seconds to Vanish, a new crime podcast that brings cold cases to life again.

Bodies begin turning up in the local lake, which spikes everyone's interest. What happens behind closed doors?

Told in alternating timelines, readers will be glued to the pages to see how this mystery will turn out. When no one is as they appear, this leads to a shocking conclusion.

My thoughts...

THE LAKE OF LOST GIRLS is psychologically rich and unsettling, with a twisty plot and chilling suspense, sure to keep you on the edge of your seat with its suspenseful plot!

Richly layered, dark, and intense, with a cleverly crafted narrative that will keep you engaged and turning the pages, thanks to its strong character development.

Spellbinding! Equal parts shocking, unnerving, and thrilling with strong emotional themes of family dynamics, sisterhood bonds, and a fascinating twisty cold case with a jaw-dropping twist.

Audiobook...

I enjoyed reading the book and listening to the outstanding audiobook! Absorbing and atmospheric, with a superb cast of stars taking the story to new heights narrated by Helen Laser, Frankie Corzo, Sara Young, Haley Taylor and David Bendena. I highly recommend the audio!

Recs...

This is for fans of the author and those who enjoy well-crafted thrillers. Also for fans of The Girl Who Was Taken (Charlie Donlea), We Are All the Same in the Dark (Julie Heaberlin), Dark Corners (Megan Goldin), All Good People Here (Ashley Flowers), and I Have Some Questions for You (Rebecca Makkai)—all favorites!

Thanks...

Many thanks to Crooked Lane Books (ARC) and Dreamscape Media (ALC) for gifted early copies via NetGalley for an honest opinion.

Blog review posted @
JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 5 Stars
Pub Date: Nov 5, 2024
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I really enjoyed this story told mostly from the perspective of Jess, a missing woman in the past, and her sister Lindsay in the present who was an only child when her big sister disappeared. The secondary cast also played a vital role in how everything played out in this disturbing tale of four missing women. The author did a fabulous job providing red herrings to keep the reader guessing at who was responsible. The audiobook narrated by a full cast was also very well done. I think fans of thrillers will love this one.

I ended up listening to this on audio once it came out, and I'm glad I did! I thought the audiobook was really well done with a full cast of narrators and it was produced really well with the podcast episodes and different multimedia elements. Overall, the story kept me entertained the entire time and I finished it really quickly. I liked the fact that it jumped between present day and past tense to tell the story. I didn't see the twist at the end coming, but it did unfortunately let me down a tiny bit. I still would recommend this to anyone who wants a fun thriller, it just wasn't my all time favorite.

This is like a Frieda McFadden but with good writing.
I really liked the podcast aspect, the varying perspectives and it kept me hooked trying to find out what happened to those girls. I found the writing well done and the red herrings well placed.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the e-ARC. I didn't enjoy the writing and the chapters were far too long. DNF.

The lake of lost girls is a thriller in the vein of Megan Miranda. The novel opens up with transcripts of a true crime podcast where the hosts are recounting the fascinating case of four young missing women from the same college campus in the late 90s. A body is discovered in the present day at the lake and, fearing it’s her sister, Jess, Lindsay tries to solve what happened to Jess and the missing girls. Cut between the podcast hosts, almost serving as narrators-the late 1990s right before Jess goes missing, and the present day, the thrilling story starts to unfold. The ending is a twist and a twisted one at that.

Great pacing-great use of narrative techniques and the multiple timelines. Recommended for all thriller and mystery readers!

Thanks to the publisher for providing the arc via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Lake of Lost Girls is a thriller about a series of college co-ed disappearances in 1998 that remain unsolved—until a popular true crime podcast reignites interest in the case.

Lindsey Fadley was six years old when her older sister, Jessica, disappeared from in front of their family home. Jessica was the fourth female college student from “Southern State University” to go missing, yet the police never investigate obvious suspects, like the married professor and frat boy connected to all the women. Lindsey begins to question the few details she’s been told over the past twenty-four years and uncovers the truth about her sister and the other missing girls.

This book is primarily told through alternating first-person POVs between Jessica and Lindsey, along with transcripts from the podcast. Unfortunately, neither Jessica nor Lindsey comes across as a smart, relatable, or enjoyable character to follow. They make terrible decisions regarding the men in their lives, and every single male character is awful. Lindsey has no friends, and the last twenty-four years of her life are entirely absent from the page. We know nothing about her except that she lives with her parents and works at a hotel—she’s a complete blank slate. Jessica, on the other hand, is a mess, lacking any backbone until she becomes petulant and bratty, only to revert to being a miserable sap again. The rest of the characters feel like cardboard cutouts, existing just to fill space and cast suspicion on various suspects. The dialogue is unnatural, and there is no atmosphere or world-building around this small North Carolina college town.

Overall, this was an unsatisfying thriller. The clues about the “whodunnit” weren’t breadcrumbs but giant loaves, and I figured it out right away.

I like the style this is written in - with different perspectives, a podcast, random visual media tied to the case, but it was predictable. Lindsey, the lead in the present, is pretty solid as a character but my god all of their relationships are so unhealthy. Her parents are literally the worst and she refuses to say it or own it or even see it. Like truly uncomfortably toxic without being overtly abusive. It was sickening. That's the solid writing though - that you can make a character believably delusional.

The end was disappointing, the red herrings were very obvious, and in the end it was just a bit of a trudge even if I felt the brutality of it all was well-written.

I think I'd give another book by this author a try, but this didn't really tick the boxes for me.

I recently read “The Lake of Lost Girls” by Katherine Greene, and I have to admit that true-crime thrillers, which have been very popular in recent years, might not be my cup of tea. Overall, I found the story a bit dull, lacking the big twists and surprises I was hoping for.

The inclusion of podcast elements, photos, and clippings was distracting for me as a reader. This is likely a personal preference, and a book with these elements might be perfect for others. Unfortunately, for me, it made the reading experience feel disjointed and less enjoyable.

If you love true crime podcasts, this book might be right up your alley. However, for me, it was a bit too flat and predictable.

In 1998/99, four young women disappeared from a college in a small North Carolina town. Twenty four years later, the body of one of them is discovered in a secluded lake. Which one? Lindsey is the younger sister of one of those girls; her family has never recovered from their loss. When a journalist wanting to write the story appears, he approaches Lindsey for assistance solving the mystery. As she digs down into the case, secrets are revealed and suspects identified, but does Lindsey really want to find out the truth?

Set in dual timelines and different POVs, the story is interspersed with podcast transcripts, interview notes, and newspaper articles. I have seen this technique used in other novels. It works successfully here. There is the danger of male predators as well as the effects of their behaviors on their many victims, including their families. Twists, turns, and red herrings lead the reader on a suspenseful journey in this engrossing, fast read.

The Lake of Lost Girls was an engaging, suspenseful, and intricately woven story. I particularly appreciated the diverse perspectives and the inclusion of podcast elements. It held my interest and delivered unexpected surprises! It made for a delightful fall read!

I love a good murder mystery and this one did not disappoint! A popular true crime podcast duo come to town to delve into the cold case disappearance of three college coeds missing from Southern State University over 15 years ago. (I kept picturing Appalachian State while reading it!) Lindsey's sister, Jessica, was one of them and she was the last one to see her before she disappeared when she went out to retrieve Lindsey's birthday cake. As body is found around the local lake and a news journalist, Ryan, asks to interview her, she is thrown into her own investigation to learn more about her idol, Jessica, and what happened to her. The police and university pushed the investigation under the rug even though all 3 girls had ties to a young professor and it is surprising that the families didn't push harder. Ryan's passion for answers leaves her guessing at his intentions and she begins to realize lies have been woven into pieces of the truth for years and years about Jessica, her college life, and even her own family where she has lived in the shadow of her big sister.

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for the ARC! #NetGalley #TheLakeofLostGirls

This book was so good! I liked the plot line, the multiple timelines, characters flowed nicely and served a purpose and POVs and I kept going back and forth between several possible suspects. I didn’t see the end twist coming and really enjoyed it. This is my favorite so far of Greene’s work. Thanks to Crooked Lane Books for my eARC! The Lake of Lost Girls published this week!

Katherine Greene’s The Lake of Lost Girls is an exhilarating journey that pulls you into a world of suspense, sisterhood, and the chilling allure of true crime. Perfect for fans of I Have Some Questions for You, this novel takes a dark dive into the disappearance of Jessica Fadley, a freshman at Southern State University, and her sister Lindsey’s relentless search for answers two decades later.
Set in 1998, the novel begins with Jessica, a once-responsible student, who vanishes during a time when female students at her North Carolina university are mysteriously going missing. Despite her family's certainty that something sinister has happened, the authorities assume she simply left of her own accord. Her last known act—going to retrieve her sister’s birthday cake from her car, leaving the trunk open—leaves a haunting question mark.
Fast forward twenty-four years: Lindsey, Jessica’s younger sister, is haunted by the unresolved tragedy and desperate for closure. When a popular true crime podcast, Ten Seconds to Vanish, shines a spotlight on Jessica’s disappearance, Lindsey dives into her own investigation, feeling both hope and apprehension as the podcast revives long-cold cases. When bodies begin to surface in a local lake, her fear that one of them might be Jessica grows, as does the pressure to find out what truly happened.
The dual timeline narrative shifts seamlessly between Jessica’s final days and Lindsey’s present-day investigation, drawing readers into a shadowy labyrinth of lies, secrets, and chilling revelations. Greene skillfully explores the culture surrounding true crime, the impact of such tragedies on families, and the darker facets of human nature.
The pacing is taut, with each new discovery adding another layer of tension. For anyone who loves mystery with psychological depth and a twist of real-world true crime intrigue, The Lake of Lost Girls is a must-read. Katherine Greene has outdone herself, delivering a suspenseful, emotionally rich thriller that keeps you guessing until the very end.

Well written, but I think I might be burnt out of the podcast cold case young murdered girl plot that gas become so popular in recent years. But, if that genre is your thing, you’ll enjoy this book.

The Lake of Lost Girls was wildly twisted and complex, and had me squeamish in so many moments. It highlights the dangers of predators and the absolute audacity of men. This is not a light read and I had a hard time rating it for that reason. I did enjoy the format of the book, the dual timeline and podcast elements were fascinating and lended themselves well to driving the story forward.

Thank you to Mariners Books and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

This alternating timeline thriller by Katherine Greene will keep you guessing until the very end. Lindsey Fadley has spent decades wondering what happened to her older sister, Jessica, who went missing from college during her freshman year. When a true crime podcast decides to explore the "lost girls" of Southern State University, Jessica included, Lindsey is approached by Ryan McKay, an investigative journalist, to work together and solve this buried mystery.

Readers are going to be shocked at some of the secrets that are uncovered in this book!

Thank you to @crookedlanebooks and Netgalley for my #gifted copy

I loved the way The lake of Lost Girls way reads with different times lines, multimedia, and so many things to be suspicious of. One of the multimedias is a pod cast where the younger sister tells what it’s like to grow up with a missing sister and all the complicated emotions that brings. I was so invested! Once I started I couldn’t stop, I had to know the next thing that would happen and who I could trust. The atmosphere in the small college town was so tense. Women are going missing and no one seems to safe.
4.5

First off, thanks to the publisher, authors, and NetGalley for the chance to read and give honest feedback

Happy Pub Day to this new adventure by the combo authors. Sadly, while entertaining, it felt extremely underdeveloped to hold my attention. I saw who the killer was by chapter 3, and the "plausible" replacements hadn't been given enough cause to make me think, "well maybe he did it." The younger sister was very 1 dimensional - perhaps that was the intent, but it was such a shallow amount of time to get to know her.

The sorority life is overdone lately for thrillers -- I was looking for huge suspense, and this was not it.

As mentioned, I WAS entertained by the podcast (true-crime) element and all of the social media and paper clippings!

I would like to give this duo another chance.