Book Review: What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall

About the Book

Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls’ testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes.

And they were liars.

For decades, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods—no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be.

My Review

Kate Alice Marshall, your place as one of my favorite authors is firmly established! To be fair it was already, but this audiobook definitely sealed the deal.

She has such a magnificent way of crafting a wholly unique and original world and a marvelously detailed cast of characters to populate it, and then placing them in bizarre and scary and violent and eerie and magnificent situations that allow them to thrive under the strongest pressure.

The narration was the icing on the cake for this one. Vilinsky is one of my favorite narrators, and she does a fantastic job here. Her voices are distinctive without being caricatures or overly done, and the nuance and pacing with which she reads really brings the story to life in all its creepy glory.

I really loved this one!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my obligation-free review copy.