Okay, so just don’t go into this expecting a FUN thriller. It’s not fun; it deals with some serious and dark subjects in a rather dark way. But it IS a compelling read, and I read it so fast, and it’s also not a bleak read. You will have resolution and not in a way that makes you want to crawl under your covers.
This is a book about a sex cult, grooming, sexual assault, misogyny, and murder. So, obviously go in knowing you should be in a good mental place while reading, because it doesn’t shy away from confronting all of those things, sometimes graphically.
So as not to spoil the ride too much, I’m only going to give a teaser of the plot. Shay hasn’t spoken to her best friend Laurel in over eight years, due to *circumstances*, and finds out that she was found dead on their alma mater’s campus when listening to one of her favorite podcasts (the only way she keeps up with her childhood friend, Jamie, who is the host). Only, Jamie thinks it wasn’t a suicide as it has been ruled, but murder. He invites Shay on-air to get in touch with him and help him break the case. She gives in and contacts him, and plunges back into a world of hurt, where both her past and what happened to Laurel are exposed.
I was so, so happy that there were no “thriller” flashbacks in this book. I’m very sick of those, as it turns out. We get Shay’s backstory in her present day POV, as she is being interviewed by Jamie for the podcast. Shay is an interesting main character. She is wrestling with some dark urges and some major trauma, and she doesn’t just want justice, as it turns out. The cult here and what they are investigating turned out to be a lot more than what I thought it was going to be, but I felt the author made it work very well.
I will definitely be reading more books by this author because I couldn’t put this one down, even despite the dark subject matter. She handled some tough stuff with care, but still made a book with an interesting plot emotionally engaging. Absolutely do recommend this.
