Gytha Lodge | SHE LIES IN WAIT

Plot (via Goodreads):

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.

This searing, psychologically captivating novel marks the arrival of a dazzling new talent, and the start of a new series featuring Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens.

Review:

So, this is one that I kind of had to sit back and process after I finished it. The plot to this novel was one that definitely kept me intrigued and interested, but did take a little while to kind of pick up with the pacing and getting me to want to keep reading. Gytha Lodge is a glorious writer with a sparkling prose, but I would say I didn't get really immersed in this one until about 100 pages in. That being said, once I started I absolutely couldn't stop. I want to preface the remainder of this review with the fact that this novel is heavily atmospheric and the way that Lodge is able to suck you into this vortex and place you wherever she would like is not only brutally chilling, but really blankets over the entire novel wonderfully.

I enjoyed the plot to this one so much as I loved the contrast between the current time and the perspective of our victim back in 1983. Getting to see the unfolding of events through her eyes added a little more depth to her character and the characters around her and I loved the contrast between the characters as selfish and destructive teenagers to hardened and jaded adults. The present time chapters were good, but not as addictive as the chapters in 1983. I enjoyed the police procedural aspect of it and absolutely adored Jonah Sheens and Juliette Hanson. The rest of the characters in the present time were enjoyable and fun to read, but just didn't get my attention the way Sheens and Hanson did. My only drawback with this novel was I felt like there were a lot of characters to try and keep track of between the group of friends from 1983 to them as adults along with the police force, characters in their personal lives, and then those being interviewed, etc. I think Lodge did a really good job of kind of bringing them to the reader slowly and reminding you of who is who through the dialogue, which was helpful, but I also took notes on my iPhone so I could keep track of everyone. One aspect I found that was not needed but really made me LOVE the direction this story went in was that Jonah Sheens knew these kids and kind of had a connection with a few of them, drawing in that personal connection. I thought this was done in an enticing manner that just made me really want to keep reading. 

Though there were a lot of characters and some slower parts that kind of lost my attention, I will say overall this novel just really killed it. Once I was fully immersed in the plot, the tidbits of information to help you solve this case with Sheens and Hanson were delightfully dispensed and I found myself feeling like I should have been on the payroll as I was working right along with the detectives! It was a fun and entertaining way to keep the reader engaged, instead of just throwing all of this information at you at once in the last ten pages. By the time I got to the ending, I thought I had it figured out and rather enjoyed that I didn't. The ending was by far one of the most pleasurable endings I have had the chance of reading lately and Lodge doesn't skip out on the darkness and exposing the flaws in some of her characters, which made me enjoy this one even more. Also, the ending was satisfying and answered all of my questions which would make this enjoyable as a standalone, but knowing that this is the beginning of a series has me even more excited to see what Jonah Sheens stumbles upon next. 

Special thanks to Random House for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 4/5