What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall
Fiction
What it’s about: Naomi and her two best friends are infamous for putting away a serial killer when they were kids, after an encounter in the woods. Only the girls were there that day, and the small community sees them as heroes, but they’re also liars. After learning the killer who attacked her has died in prison 22 years later, Naomi goes back to their small town of Chester, and she begins to question what she really saw that day in the woods.
Why you might like it: Marshall’s writing is powerfully descriptive in this novel, bringing even more darkness and magic to the woods. This dark thriller offers a look into a community full of secrets and webs of lies that cause many twists and reveals that leave readers feeling stranded in the woods just like Naomi.
Reviewers say: “Unexpected plot twists, deep psychological perspicacity, and an endlessly interesting dance between past and present...evokes the dread and intensity of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects” (NYT Book Review).