Book Review: What Lies in the Woods

WHAT LIES IN THE WOODS | Kate Alice Marshall
01.17.2023 | Flatiron Books
Rating: 4/5 stars

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.

What Lies in the Woods is my second book from Marshall and my first by her in the adult thriller genre. I love books with a premise that requires the main character to flash back to an unreliable perception of the past. The reader gets the chance to discover the truth alongside the narrator and that’s exactly what happened with this story. Naomi is a troubled, but likable main character that readers will want to ride along with on her journey. Equipped with a well-grounded premise, Marshall adds in a fantastic small town setting and a cast of very suspicious characters. As commonly found in stories with these elements, there are many secrets to uncover and a whole lot of red herrings. Marshall’s pacing kept me on my toes as she threw different hints at me and while I was able to guess parts of the grand reveal, there were still certain details I didn’t catch along the way. 

🎧: I listened to this one on audio and was immediately drawn into the story by the narrator. I think that this story is perfectly formatted for audio consumption and highly recommend giving it a try!