This book was truly thrilling.
It follows a set of adults who are now being reinvestigated after the skeleton of their friend, who has been missing for almost 30 years, is found. It also follows the team of police investigating it.
I really loved this book. It had me on the edge of my seat from start to finish and I could barely put it down.
The author followed absolutely every suspicion I had in great detail, putting everything under a microscope and yet I still didn't see the ending coming. At some point over the course of reading this book my brain suspected everyone individually but the author so excellently diffused every thought I had in mere pages. The mystery within this story became so intricate and yet there was no point in this book where I was confused or even the slightest bit lost, I was hanging onto every word and by the end I was blown away by a massive twist and a terrifying chase where I saw both ends; murderer (who I had just found out the identity of) and law-enforcement and yet I still never knew what was going to happen next.
My heart was broken by the end of this story by the true events of that fateful night all those years ago but I am so glad I read this book as it was truly an excellent mystery, thriller and (kind of) police procedural. I really grew to love the characters and the development they went through throughout this book just reassures how brilliant in every way it was. I hope I get to see more from these characters and from this author very soon.

Gytha Lodge writes a well plotted debut, a mystery and police procedural, a cold case investigation of the murder of 14 year old Aurora Jackson, a young insecure and naive girl. In 1983 Aurora joins her good looking older sister, Topaz and her trendsetting friends on a camping trip in the forest. Topaz is less than happy to be stuck with Aurora, and the group proceed to indulge in heavy partying, involving drink, drugs and sex. The following morning, the group awaken in a heavy stupor with hazy memories of the previous night, only to find that Aurora has disappeared, triggering a frantic but unsuccessful police and community search for her. 30 years later, human remains have been discovered in the forest, Aurora has been lying in wait through all those years for the truth of what happened to her to emerge.

In a story that goes back and forth in time, DCI Jonah Sheen now heads the police team that is in charge of this cold case mystery, and he knows before it is confirmed that the remains are those of Aurora. The group of friends, having a tinge of suspicion attached to them through the years, have maintained their close relationships with each other. Jonah knew them from school, although he was not part of their cool circles, and as a rookie cop, he was part of the search party looking for Aurora. The police now engage in detailed interviews of the group and discover discrepancies, silence and less than the truth from the friends in their original statements. Are these signs of guilt, or largely a group of self absorbed and self serving friends desperate not to implicate themselves or each other? Additionally, Andrew Mackenzie, a member of the teaching staff at Aurora's school was camping not too far from the group of friends on the fateful night in 1983. This is a story of secrets, deception, intrigue and lies, mingling with intense jealousy and the overblown nature of teen dramas.

The police team are outlined well, and they too have secrets of their own. Jonah is a flawed character, but strong and steely in his determination to solve the mystery of Aurora's murder. Gytha Lodge provides a haunting depiction of the innocent Aurora, someone I really felt for throughout. You get a authentic picture of teen preoccupations and culture in the novel and the intensity of feelings and emotions experienced at that age. I found this a enjoyable and entertaining read, well constructed and with a great sense of location. I believe this is the first in a series, I will certainly be reading the next one. Many thanks to Penguin Michael Joseph for an ARC.

6 teenagers go camping 5 return. What happened to Aurora on that fateful trip is a mystery that haunts them all until her remains are found 30 years later.

The 5 teenagers, Topaz (her sister), Coraline, Jojo, Connor and Brett are now adults with careers and reputations put at risk as the police team under DCI Jonah Sheens methodically retrace the initial investigation to find the murderer. In true mystery style there's lies, half-truths and a few red herrings creating a credible world.

We are given glimpses of Aurora's final days through all of the characters who knew her. Flashbacks are beautifully woven into the modern investigation and add to the findings of the police but do not give away any clues leaving the reader guessing and wanting to read on to find out the answers.

This is a proper mystery/police investigation with all aspects of procedure we have become familiar with from TV police shows. The added charm is the small town UK police team experience so we have time to get to know them and the writer has created credible, fallible characters for us to like. I would love to see a sequel for DCI Sheen and his team as so much is hinted at about them but is artfully not focused on.

Warning: Teenagers do not recommend this to your parents as they will never let you go camping on your own again!

I was given the novel free by netgalley.com for my fair and honest review.

She Lies in Wait is a well written murder mystery which takes place across a dual timeline – 1983 and the present day. DCI Jonah Sheens is pulling together a crack CID team when the body of a young woman is found in the woods. He instinctively knows who it is, because he remembers when Aurora Jackson went missing, thirty years before.

Her disappearance haunted him and now he must try to solve her murder, and that means he will have to face some of his own demons as he pursues the truth about what happened thirty years ago.

In 1983 seven friends went down to the woods for a camping trip but only six returned. Aurora Jackson had tagged along behind her sister, Topaz as the school friends set out to party in the woods, their libidos raging and their thirst needing quenched.

The reader is treated to a series of flashbacks which tell some of the story of 1983 and the rest we learn from following the CID team as they unpick the clues and attempt to find the killer.

The woodland scenes are nicely atmospheric and not a little creepy and the characters are well drawn and respectably fleshed out.

The CID team contains some very interesting characters from whom I hope we will be hearing a great deal more. Not least of these is DCI Sheens who comes from a travelling family, helping to make him the archetypal outsider.

This debut novel is well-plotted and has a number of twists and mis-directions to keep the reader guessing, though sharp eyed sleuths will spot a decently large clue early on in the book.

Nonetheless, this is a well-paced and intriguing police procedural with a team that warrants further investigation.

Verdict: An accomplished debut from an author I will read again

A body is found in the woods. It's the body of 14-year old Aurora Jackson, who went missing 30 years ago from a camping trip with her friends. DCI Sheens, who is assigned to the case, went to school with her and her friends, and he was a young constable when the first searches for her were underway.

DCI Sheens is nervous when she is found, as he has secrets he doesn't want to be uncovered by the investigation. It seems that at least one of Aurora's friends might have a secret too - that they know exactly what happened to her.

This was a good idea for a story, but I felt that the pace was a little slow and I wasn't very excited at any point in the book. I didn't really connect with any of the characters, and you don't really get to know them well enough to be suspicious of anyone or relate to them. It seems like the author wants everyone to be a suspect until the end so everything is very vague until you find out exactly what happened.

The writing of the book is easy going and I had no complaints on that front, but in a market full of tense thrillers this doesn't quite match up to a lot of others out there. It was an okay read, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, sadly. This was the authors debut novel, and I really hope that she develops her art and style further.

Everyone thought that Aurora Jackson was a smart and beautiful young girl with a bright future ahead of her. So why would someone kill her? That’s what DCI Sheens is trying to figure out when, thirty years after her disappearance, the body of Aurora is found in the same woods where she was last seen alive. In 1983, six teenagers, aged between 15 and 18 went camping together. They were the popular cool kids, everyone was either jealous or scared of them. They were a closed group and Aurora was clearly the outsider during this camping trip, but she was also Topaz’s sister so they tried to make her feel included. However, that night, alcohol, drugs, lust, and jealousy are high, memories are blurry, and the six friends claim to not know what really happened to Aurora.

Through the flashbacks we read what really happened the night Aurora disappeared, while in the present time DCI Johan Sheens and his team interrogate once again the group of friend who, thirty years later, are still close and present a unite front. The author created a cast of characters that are multi-layered and complex. The six friends are difficult to figure out, it’s not clear if and what they are hiding and, at some point, they are all suspects.. I found the character of DCI Jonah Sheens fascinating. He was part of the first investigation thirty years earlier, he had some connection to the six friends, and he is also hiding something. The members of his team are interesting and engaging, they are all different from each other, but work really well together. Aurora remains the real protagonist of the story. She feels realistic and innocent and, through her flashbacks, we see a young girl, between childhood and adulthood, trying to fit in with a group of people who are not really her friends.

With a slow pace, flashbacks, and twists, the author manages to keep the tension always high and, page after page, there is a sense of dread, a sense of something bad about to happen. Tana French meets The Secret History in this immersive, riveting, and suspenseful police procedural and, if this is the first book in a series, I am already looking forward to reading book number 2!

A crime thriller set in and around Southampton, starts with 7 kids going camping together but only 6 survive the night. 14 year old Aurora, is nowhere to be found, until 30 years later when the remains of her body are discovered. The missing persons investigation at the time, had a few mistakes and gaps and the children hid the use of alcohol and drugs so it's now DCI Sheen's job to find out the truth about what happened to Aurora. DCI Sheen has been involved in this case before, as a young PC so remembers a little of the case, it comes to light he may know more than he's letting on. He leads a team of 4 detectives who all have interesting traits to make a series out, all fairly believable and likable.

The story is told from the present, the detectives lead the plot into discovering really what happened by interviewing all the children that were there that night. The six are still in contact and seem to be friends but this obviously stretches tolerances when the truth behind to be unravelled. The chapters are intertwined with Aurora's point of view describing what happened that night from her point of view, letting us have tiny clues each time, also leading us up the garden path!

I found this a nice easy read, fairly pacey, and well thought-out. Although the detectives were likable, the 'suspects' were written with less appeal. As with all of this genre I like to guess who it was at the beginning but didn't change my view this time, although it was wrong a few red herrings got me there! I look forward to reading the next in Gytha Lodge's series.

Aahhh - the cold case murder investigation. I just love me one of those. Something about a heinous act perpetrated all those years ago, being revisited when suddenly new evidence is unearthed. And in this case, it's not any old evidence, it's only the body of the murder victim that's been discovered.

The story is told in alternating timelines - so the process of the investigation is experienced in real time, and the flashbacks to Aurora's fateful night camping with her sister and friends, are told simultaneously. This is a well worked method of drip feeding the story to the reader and is very effective at unearthing little nuggets of information as you go.

However, for me, this was just too long - it felt like the author was too keen to throw rather a lot of red herrings into our path before the reveal. And then when we reached the 'reveal' it had become an anticlimax. Usually with this type of book you expect a dark twist in the reveal, so the ending left me a little unsatisfied.

The author works hard to give you reasons to doubt all of the characters and all could be deemed worthy suspects at one point or another. However, sometimes the effort to do this made the narrative confusing and a little bit contrived. It was surprising as well how many of the now grown up teenagers that had been at the fateful camping trip seemed to display little or no emotion. To me, you would think this is the kind of an event that would shape most people's lives irrevocably, but the majority of them seemed to continue on the trajectory of success they were on prior.

The chapters written from Aurora's perspective are both chilling and haunting. There is something about reading a character's narrative, when you as the reader, know that they are shortly about to die. Also the team investigating the murder were 4 really distinct and interesting characters and I would definitely like to see how their individual storytelling deliver in further books in the series.

Gosh, what a rollercoaster
A brilliantly gripping and unputadownable book
You continuously change your mind who did it
Certainly a must read

Thank you netgalley, Gytha Lodge and Michael Joseph for allowing me to read and review this book.

Although slow going at times, this was an intense story with a lot of suspense and surprises. I didn’t predict anything and was definitely shocked. I found all of the characters really interesting, and liked that the chapters varied between past and present. I gave this one 4 stars because at times it did drag on a bit, and I felt like it was taking me forever to get through just one chapter. Some chapters were also quite long, which made me want to read faster because I was losing focus. I believe this is book one in a series, and I can safely say that I will definitely be reading the next books. Full of tense moments, this was an addictive read that had me hooked from the beginning.

A group of young people go on a camping weekend in the forest which ends in tragedy when the youngest member of the party goes missing. Thirty years on her body is found close to the camp site. It's up to the police to find out what happened and what the other campers knew about her death. Rather a slow start to the book but intriguing enough to want to find out what happened. A promising debut novel.

Thirty years after her disappearance 14 yr old Aurora Jackson’s body is discovered in a hideaway that only 6 friends knew about. DCI Jonah sheens is heading up this new murder investigation and it’s a little close to home, a young man in 1983 he knew the victim from school.
The book is set over different time lines, well set out and easy to follow. Well written, interesting characters and a great storyline.
A new crime series featuring Jonah Sheen and I’ll look forward to the next instalment.

She Lies in Wait by Gytha Lodhe was a thrilling read until the very end! It had me guessing, and surprised me to no end!

I loved the entire novel, and I cannot wait to see what the author has in store for us next!

I absolutely love a plot where a significant period of time has passed since the murder/event/scenario. It makes for some really unreliable characters and makes you question everyone as to their truthfulness. Especially when you consider that this plot involves 6 characters and one of them must have been responsible, yet all of them are proclaiming their innocence. Well this book just straight away held my interest!

The book is told from many view points, including the six friends who were present in the woods that night and various policemen investigating the crime 30 years later. There are also flashback chapters to Aurora’s version of events over the course of that evening.

Sometimes I find when a book is told from many different characters perspectives it can be easy to get lost in the narration and forget what happened to which character and which character thought what. I didn’t find that with this book however, I actually really enjoyed that we got to see the story through many different eyes as it helped to cast shadow and doubt over all of them. I really enjoyed how the author cast suspicion over multiple characters, even one of the investigating policemen!

I genuinely had no idea who was responsible for Aurora’s death and what the motive would have been until the end when all is revealed. I think considering this is the author’s debut novel she has done a remarkable job at keeping the plot in place despite shifting back and forth from character to character. She also moves the book along at a good pace, I never found myself reading a chapter and then thinking ‘that didn’t add much’. The book was always moving forward towards ultimately finding out what happened to Aurora.

I really enjoyed this book and if this is the level of writing from the author on her first debut novel then I honestly can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

Last year I was fortunate enough to read Lucy Foley’s The Hunting Party and I was again reminded of that book here: six friends go away together to a relatively remote location and one of them is killed. Everyone is a suspect. Another commonality is that the timeline moves in each from the day of the murder to the present. The tagline from the first book could easily apply here:

“All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.”

I was thoroughly rapt from the first page. It’s a proper page-turner that propels you to the finish. It’s easy to knock this over in a day or two because it’s compulsive reading. I didn’t find the mystery too easy to solve because my suspicions were constantly redirected, exactly as expected for a book like this. I particularly enjoyed the sections of text from the night of the event.

The reason I haven’t given this a full 5 stars is that some of the characters were more sketches rather than fully-developed people. It was hard for me to picture them properly because I felt I didn’t have a grounded understanding of what was making them tick. I do believe that this will be the first in a series so further characterisation of the police team working with DCI Sheens will no doubt be forthcoming in future novels.

An excellent start to what will hopefully be a very successful series.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Penguin UK - Michael Joseph and Gytha Lodge for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A group of young friends decide to go on a camping trip, drink, drugs and sexual tension leads to the youngest of the group going missing., thirty years later her body is found murdered. A great story that you really need to read and follow DCI Jonah Sheens investigation .

You know how you get pet hates with certain genres of book? Well one of mine is police/detective novels, and another is series linked books. She Lies In Wait is both of these, and when I realised my mistake in choosing it I almost relegated it to the DNF pile.

However just at that point it piqued my interest and I persevered. I’m so glad I did. It’s a well paced novel about a crime that happened 30 years ago, and flicks between accounts from the day in question and the modern day investigation. Characters were well written and dislikeable but not in the annoying sense, and I wanted to keep reading to find out the truth. There’s the usual red herrings along the way, before the book reaches a not unseen conclusion but in a satisfying way. .

I would recommend this book to friends, and think it would make a good tv drama adaptation. However I wouldn’t rush to read the next in the series when it comes, but that’s just me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my ARC, and the opportunity to read something I wouldn’t normally choose.

A group of teenagers go camping one summer and Aurora, the youngest member of the group goes missing.
30 years later her body is found, Detective Sheens and his team must find out why and how Aurora died.
She Lies in Wait, is one of those books that although the premise isn’t original still feels original enough.
The police team all have their flaws and relative backstories, which don’t take anything away from the tragic circumstances around Aurora’s death. Definitely worth a read.

Thirty years ago, six teenagers go into the woods together and the next day only five come out. It was a night of drinking and partying- typical teenager behavior. The next day they discover Aurora is missing. Is she still alive? Where could she have gone? Thirty years later a body is found, and the case is being investigated by Jonah Sheens. This book was told in alternating timelines between the present and 30 years earlier when Aurora went missing. I really enjoyed the chapters from Aurora’s perspective and wished there was even more of that. In fact, all the characters seemed more interesting then. The book was well written and entertaining though I did guess who the killer was early on. I didn’t really relate or connect with any of the characters which is always a bummer when that happens.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing for an ARC copy.

DCI Jonah Sheens #1

July 1993' a group of teenagers go camping in the forest. It's a scorching night and Aurora Jackson, the youngest of the group, was delighted to be allowed to tag along. As the night progresses they drink , dance and kiss. Some of them slip into the woods in pairs. But in the morning Aurora has disappeared. An investigation was launched but no trace of the teenager was ever found. Thirty years later, Auroras body was unearthed in a hideaway that only the six friends knew about. Jonah Sheens is put in charge of solving this cold case.

This is the first book in a new police procedural series featuring DCI Jonah Sheens. He was new to the police force but was still involved in the first investigation into Auroras disappearance. We get flashbacks through Auroras eyes of what happened thirty years ago. There is also plenty of curve balls but I still guessed correctly who the killer was. We get some background information on Sheens and his fellow teammates, not all of it is good though.im looking forward to reading the next instalment to this series.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Penguin UK - Michael Joseph and the author Gytha Lodge for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.