What Lies in the Woods Review

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the blog! Today I am back with a book review, and this happens to be my first 5 star read of 2023! So, let's get into it.

This was my January BOTM pick, so it's been a few months since reading this. BOTM thriller's are always so good. I feel like 9/10 of the thrillers they have are just amazing. This being no exception.

The story follows Naomi, who when she was young was brutally stabbed 17 times. By some miracle she lived. Her and her two friends, Liv and Cass, loved playing in the woods, and they were there when the attack happened. Some may call them liars, some say they put an innocent man behind bars, some question what the girls remember about that night, and some may believe the story that was actually spun. But of course, as readers, we know better.

The man they put behind bars all those years ago had passed away from cancer. So, Naomi makes a trip home to see her oldest friends. While in town, Liv goes missing. Naomi is convinced something more sinister is going on and wants to investigate for herself; she has to be careful how far she digs. Some people want to keep their secrets buried.

This book was so good. I loved everything second of it. The plot and the characters were just so captivating. I loved Naomi. She was such a strong female character determined to find out the truth. She was the type of character that didn't like asking for help but knew she needed to. She was able to look at the bigger picture and take that into account.

There was also this element of goddesses and magic. Not in the literal sense, no one had magical powers, but the girls had made up this Goddess Game with pretend magic. This theme of make believe and childhood magic was woven throughout the story, and I feel like it really gave an edge to the book. Most thrillers that I've read don't have something like this, so I thought it was really unique and loved it.

Out of everything, the only thing I had a problem with was the ending. When everything was coming together and we were finally finding things out, it was a little confusing. The reveals were all too close together and everything overlapped. It felt like a "Oh she did it," "Wait no, it was her" type of thing. So, for a while I was really confused, but the very last couple of pages cleared some things up.

Overall, I would highly recommend checking this book out! 5/5 stars!

Alright folks, that is all I have for this week! Come back next Wednesday for another blog post! As always thank you for reading:)