She Lies in Wait by Gytha Lodge
Series: ,
Published by Random House on January 8, 2019
Genres: Crime, Mystery & Detective, Suspense, Thrillers
Pages: 368
Format: ARC, eBook
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On a scorching July night in 1983, a group of teenagers goes camping in the forest. Bright and brilliant, they are destined for great things, and the youngest of the group—Aurora Jackson—is delighted to be allowed to tag along. The evening starts like any other—they drink, they dance, they fight, they kiss. Some of them slip off into the woods in pairs, others are left jealous and heartbroken. But by morning, Aurora has disappeared. Her friends claim that she was safe the last time they saw her, right before she went to sleep. An exhaustive investigation is launched, but no trace of the teenager is ever found.
Thirty years later, Aurora’s body is unearthed in a hideaway that only the six friends knew about, and Jonah Sheens is put in charge of solving the long-cold case. Back in 1983, as a young cop in their small town, he had known the teenagers—including Aurora—personally, even before taking part in the search. Now he’s determined to finally get to the truth of what happened that night. Sheens’s investigation brings the members of the camping party back to the forest, where they will be confronted once again with the events that left one of them dead, and all of them profoundly changed forever.
I was browsing NetGalley one night and came across today’s book, She Lies in Wait by Gytha Lodge. When I read the “back cover” of this book, I couldn’t wait to read it. I had never heard of the author, but not surprising when I learned that this is her debut novel.
Six teenagers go into the woods on a camping trip and after a night of partying, 14-year-old Aurora Jackson is missing. She went on the trip with her older sister, Topaz and her friends. After a night of drinking and partying, the teens find that Aurora’s sleeping bag is empty and cold but no one knows where she’s gone.
Flash forward 30 years and Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens is called to investigate the remains of a body found in the forest. After testing, it’s confirmed to be the remains of Aurora Jackson. Sheen then begins to question the five then-teens who were with Aurora when she went missing. Sheen went to school with these people – he knows them and he’s not a fan of their close-nit group. Now Sheen is determined to finally get to the truth of what happened that night. As each person is interrogated, it becomes clear that they were not entirely truthful when they were questioned thirty years earlier.
This story itself is told in alternating timelines – one is Aurora’s voice in the past and her experiences during the camping trip and the other timeline is in the present, as Jonah investigates what happened in the woods leading to Aurora’s death. This author has skillfully created a story that includes lots of backstory on these then-teens-now-adult characters. The story is well written, moves at a great pace, although I will say I felt like there were questions that went unanswered — perhaps this could be book one of a series? Regardless, this book definitely had me guessing – I kept thinking I had it figured out but then the story would go in a different direction.
Gytha Lodge is a writer and multi-award-winning playwright who lives in Cambridge. After studying creative writing at UEA, she was shortlisted for the Yeovil Literary Prize and the Arts’ Council England fiction awards, and developed a large online following for her young adult and children’s writing, with over five million reads accrued on platform Wattpad. She Lies in Wait is her debut novel.
I received an advanced readers digital copy of this book from NetGalley and Random House in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to provide a positive review . Thank you NetGalley!
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