Published By: Quercus
Pages: 384
Released On: 31/08/2023
What REALLY happened at Turtle Lake? You think you know. Think again.
California, 2003: A thirteen-year-old girl disappears from a party at Carlsbad’s Turtle Lake. Discovered on the trunk of a nearby cottonwood tree is the word LIAR graffitied in blood.
What you know – three teenagers went to the lake that night but only two came back. Later, they confess to murdering their friend – is only part of the story. But did they really kill her? And if not, why say they did?
Told across two timelines and tapping into a horrific crime, All the Little Liars is a novel about sisterly love and toxic friendship that asks: how much would you sacrifice to belong?
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Quercus for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
Truly Darkly Deeply is one of my absolute favourite thrillers, and so I was super excited to see Victoria had written a new one. And anyone who shares my name instantly earns at least one gold star in my reviews before I’ve even opened the book.
This is just what I was expecting. It’s thrilling and twisty turny, and emotional, and frightening, and so well written and accomplished. It reads like a proper true crime story and it has you caught in its net right from the very first chapter.
I’m not going to spoil it, obviously, but it has so many twists and turns it’ll have you audibly gaping at what direction it’s taking, and you have to reread bits, so shocked at new developments. In fact, now I’ve finished it, I might reread it, knowing what I do now, I wonder if it would read differently.
Victoria is great at manipulating her storyline in order to manipulate the reader. You’re never 100% sure that what you’re reading is right, you don’t know who or what to trust or believe. It takes someone special to be able to write like that and it still be an entertaining and enjoyable read.
This isn’t a linear story. It has the main present timeline, which I suppose is linear, but it flashes back to before the incident, and straight after the incident. It’s a brilliant way of dropping clues and offering suspects. It builds up the tension which is exactly what you want for this genre of book.
It’s not always the easiest thing to read. There are some shocking scenes and topics that leave an unsavoury taste in your mouth, but they really help to increase the discomfort you feel at reading this story. And it makes you think about good vs evil: are people 100% one or the other, are there shades of both, can we truly know who another person is?
This is more than a missing-person as such. It has such depth. It’s a lost child mystery, a murder mystery, a psychological thriller. It really makes you question everyone and everything.
It is brilliantly created with the perfect pacing, fabulous characters, a thrilling plot, and a shocking conclusion. Considering how thrilling and topsy turvy it is, it is a really easy read. I read it in just two sittings. It flows off the page and you’re just constantly eager for more, more. more.
This may only be the second book of hers I have read, but she’s definitely up there with the best thriller writers around, and she’ll be one that I keep an eye out for, when it comes to new books to read.
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