Not really for me, I found it quite boring and repetitive, The story was also similar to one I have read previously.

An excellent detective novel - believable characters and lots of twists and turns. I will definitely look out for other books by this author.

30 years ago Aurora Jackson disappeared, in 1983 she went camping with her sister and her sister's friends. When a body is found DCI Jonah Sheens finds his past returning to haunt his present. The group of friends have remained together but over the years have muddied the water making it difficult for the police to discover the truth.

The plot moves fluidly between past and present. The characters are really believable and you want to spend time with them. I really enjoyed this and could've read it in one sitting. This is a great start to probably a new detective series and I look forward to the next one being published. If you love police procedural, with interesting characters and a great plot then give this a try.

Loved the sound of it, but didn’t keep me as interested as it should have. Not one I will be recommending, but wasn’t awful.

The remains of a body are found and a 30 year cold case investigation is reopened, led by DCI Jonah Sheens.

DCI Sheens went to school with the victim and the 6 suspects, who were with her on the night the she disappeared and are the only people who knew about the hideaway where her body is found. As the investigation deepens, it seems that everyone is harbouring secrets and lies abound.
Despite being set between 2 timelines, the plot is easy to follow and has enough twists and turns to keep it interesting throughout. I look forward to reading the rest of the DCI Sheens series.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this. I read a lot of crime/thrillers and this was one of those rare ones where you really feel somehow bereft when you find out the full story of what what happened to the victim - usually once you know who the victim is, the point of the book is just to find out whodunnit but this one was more than that - it really did feel like a personal tragedy as well as a page-turner that sweeps you along so you can find out what really happened - and who really did it. Cleverly done, too, so it's very difficult (if not impossible!) to guess who the killer was.

I've enjoyed reading "She Lies in Wait".

The Plot:
While I won’t say the plot was extraordinary, it was definitely enough to keep me hooked. A mystery unsolved for thirty years? A group of friends who have something to hide? I wanted to know who was telling the truth and who was lying. Apart from that, it was difficult for me to get attached to the murder event itself because we only have brief snippets from the past and not much info about the girl found dead. Everything makes us wonder, which is probably why I’ve liked it so much. Indeed what made the book so interesting for me was the way the story was told, parallel bits being revealed between the two different timelines. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I didn’t think the killer was obvious, and honestly, it could be anyone else. So I liked the suspense and the way the events unfolded.

The Characters:
I didn’t feel much for the characters, I think mostly because of the writing style and PoVs. I was curious to know more about Aurora, and I was disappointed that her chapters were so brief. Jonah’s inquisitive nature was interesting and the way all characters were portrayed was smart, to the point I’ve suspected of every single one of them. It does give you that vibe of “can’t trust anyone”. Hanson character could have been better explored in my opinion. Overall, I felt the characters were simply there to support the mystery solving narrative and unfortunately I didn’t feel much attached to any of them.

The Writing Style:
This was probably what disappointed me the most but I don’t want to be unfair since this was an advanced reader copy. The head-hopping was what frustrated me the most. At one point we were reading from Jonah’s PoV and then suddenly… we were inside Hanson’s head. The best chapters were Aurora’s since we were only hearing from Aurora’s PoV and no one else’s. It’d be such a shame if I’ve given up of this book in the beginning because of this (I was close to) because I’ve ended up enjoying it a lot. Apart from that, the idea of having two different timelines worked really well.

Overall, I felt She Lies in Wait was an enjoyable read, with a great amount of suspense and a good enough plot that made me keep reading it until the very end.

This was on my shelf for a while and I kept thinking about picking it up - but was always drawn to something else.
It was ok - not the best I have read - but it was readable. The charecters were quite annoying at times - and the back and forward made me a bit dizzy!
I am shocked the police took 30 years to solve something that took me 20 minutes! Maybe I am in the wrong job.

This was OK but not great. It was boring in parts, especially all of the interviews, and somewhat repetitive. The characters were quite believable and the truth, when it was revealed, was unepected. But you can't help thinking that the police should have solved this mystery thirty years ago.

She Lies in Wait is a thrilling and engrossing read. It is cleverly written with interesting characters and complex relationships. The truth is gradually revealed as the narrative alternates between the past and the present. The story had me gripped from start to finish. I strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys crime thrillers with a twist.

Not one of my best reads of year. There is a solid premise of a body discovered thirty years after a girl goes missing and the question of whodunit. In 1983, six friends go camping and one doesn’t come back. It is now up to DCI Jonah Sheens to discover who killed Aurora Jackson. He is aware of the history of the incident having both been at school with the suspects and being part of the initial investigation.

For me, the narrative is a little clunky and the action repetitive. Most of the story surrounds police interviews with the suspects and, quite frankly, I became bored. It isn’t badly written by any means but it is crying out for a serious edit.

I received a complimentary copy of the book from NetGalley and publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the opportunity to read this book. Wow what can I say. This book has to be the best book I’ve read so far this year. The storyline and the characters are brilliant. I didn’t want this story to end, but at the same time I wanted to know who done it. I was way off. There was a lot of names mentioned. Absolutely brilliant book. I will recommend this one to everyone.

I wouldn't exactly call this a page-turner, but it does provide a layered guessing game. And a whole lot of growing anticipation. I don't think I will ever look at camping the same way.

Perfect for fans of friendships-gone-bad and secrets that hurt even years later.

Thank you NetGalley for this cope in exchange for my honest review.

Six teenagers go camping in the woods. One of the group, Topaz Jackson, is saddled with her baby sister, Aurora. After a night of drinking they wake up to discover an empty sleeping bag. Aurora Jackson is missing.

Thirty years pass and there still hasn’t been any sign of her, until bones are discovered in the woodland where the teenagers camped. The body is confirmed as that of the missing teen, concealed in a place that only the six of them could have known about. The question is, will DCI Jonah Sheens be able to discover which one was capable of murder?

I really enjoyed the inclusion of flashbacks in this story, learning about things from Aurora’s point of view was an extra dimension. Her chapters were also really well written and engaging.

A slight issue, however, is the characters all being ‘thrown at you’ at the beginning. It took me some time to figure out who was who. Once you’ve sussed it, there’s no problem but just something to watch out for.

The novel is not a page turner by any means. It’s a fairly slow burner, but a worthwhile read all the same. I was intrigued to know ‘whodunnit’!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin UK - Michael Joseph for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. I really liked reading a new series and this was based in Southampton but this was not for me at all. Have read much better.

Overall I think this book was pretty good. Although I must admit that it did take a while in the beginning to get going. At first I was confused by the constant use of nicknames, surnames, and first names, I could barely keep all the characters straight since they were being called so many different names. But once I got to about 40% through the book, I was more able to understand what what happening.
The story was interesting, a group of teens go camping in the woods and the youngest member ends up missing. The remains of the young girl are discovered thirty years later and it's up to the police to put together the pieces of what happened that night. It was a powerful story of friends trying to protect each other and stay strong but in the end, all they did was help hide the true events of a gruesome crime.
I thought the author did a great job of keeping up the twists and turns all the way until the end. Although I think when you finally find out who the killer is could have been more dramatic. The person basically just admits it and the other character barely has a reaction. But there were a few times where my heart did race while reading a particularly tense part.
I did find that the text was hard to follow at some points. I don't know if it was just the digital formatting of the text that was sent to my Kindle, but the typesetting could use some work. The viewpoints were constantly shifting and there wasn't any indication of a viewpoint switching (such as a line to break the paragraphs or the character's name in bold). I was having a hard time knowing who was telling the story, so it should have been more clear when the text jumped from a different viewpoint or to another time frame. Sometimes I would have to reread sections because the voice changed and I got confused.
However, overall I thought it was an exciting story and I was really dedicated to finding out what happened to poor Aurora. I also enjoyed some of the character development, I really found Topaz and Coraline interesting and their whole odd relationship unnerving. The book also had a great ending that left me as a reader feeling like everything had been wrapped up nice and tidy. I would probably read another title from the author!

I really enjoyed this book, particularly as the story had flashbacks to the 1980s when the incident occurred. One slight niggle was the accuracy of this time, for example, one particular reference was made to how a person would receive texts to gain information- I don't know of anybody that had a phone that could send texts back in 1989! Niggles aside, the story is very complex and we'll thought out. Overall a very good book.

Brilliant gripping thriller.

A group of friends go camping one night but one girl never makes it home. 30 years later, she is found.

A well paced thriller with birth today and 30 years ago intertwined making it a gripping enjoyable read.

This is an intriguing story, not fast paced but very thoriughly detailed.
A group of teenagers goes on a forest camping trip, taking the younger Aurora who is dazzled by her inclusion, but unaware of what might be expected from the drug taking hard drinking group.
The teenagers forest trip turns into something unimaginably terrible. Aurora , the murdered teen, is not discovered till many years later, by which time the teens are all in respectable career positions.
DC Sheen, patient and with his own connections to the group, manages to slowly feel his way through the tissues of lies.
The lies and cover ups continue through the story, but it is interesting to see how the layers peel away, leaving the characters open . They are all to blame in different ways, and the realisation is shocking.
I enjoyed reading this book. Thanks to NetGalley for a review copy.

Have to say I really enjoyed this one it was a real page turner. Didn't want to stop reading as I really wanted to know who the killer was and how they had gotten away with it for so long.

The four main police officers were all pretty cool though I spent a good part thinking that DCI Sheens could have been the killer as he was defently hiding stuff and came across a little creepy because of it. The other 3 all had their own strengths and weakness and all together they made a strong team and worked well together.

The suspects were all plusable and so it took quite a bit to figure out who was involved with the crime and who wasn't.

All in all a really enjoyable book and I would recommend to those that love crime novels.