Dark and Shallow Lies | ARC Review

Thank you to Razorbill and Netgalley for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion in anyway.

La Cachette, Louisiana, is the worst place to be if you have something to hide.

This tiny town, where seventeen-year-old Grey spends her summers, is the self-proclaimed Psychic Capital of the World–and the place where Elora Pellerin, Grey’s best friend, disappeared six months earlier.

Grey can’t believe that Elora vanished into thin air any more than she can believe that nobody in a town full of psychics knows what happened. But as she digs into the night that Elora went missing, she begins to realize that everybody in town is hiding something–her grandmother Honey; her childhood crush Hart; and even her late mother, whose secrets continue to call to Grey from beyond the grave.

When a mysterious stranger emerges from the bayou–a stormy-eyed boy with links to Elora and the town’s bloody history–Grey realizes that La Cachette’s past is far more present and dangerous than she’d ever understood. Suddenly, she doesn’t know who she can trust. In a town where secrets lurk just below the surface, and where a murderer is on the loose, nobody can be presumed innocent–and La Cachette’s dark and shallow lies may just rip the town apart.

Dark and Shallow Lies is an interesting dark mystery about a small community hidden away in the bayou. That can only mean one thing: twisted people.

We follow 17 year old Grey as she returns to her place of birth, La Chachette for that Summer. A place hidden away in the bayou where she grew up with 10 other children all born in the same year. They are a tight knit group. Unlike the others however Grey is the only one that seems to want to stay.

This book is one you can dive into deep. I only came up for air at the end of it. Once you are in you are swept along the dark vibe and feel of the bayou and the mystery of the dissapearance of a young girl. I think that is what I liked best about this whole book. The setting of the bayou and this small community. The bayou being the best place to hide away. The author manages to weave the feel of the bayou and the south throughout the entire book.

Having said that I think that the plot in itself wasn’t that surprising. I called the plot twists pretty early on in the book. While I was in the book I was swept in by the writing itself and the bayou feel, but as soon as I was finished that was it. I had no reall attachment to it or the characters. The middle also dragged in places. It is almost 500 pages and looking back, it certainly could have been cut back here and there.

Regardless I do think this is a fun book to read on a stormy night to get swept up in. Just for that one evening and moment. That can be good enough too.