With a highly saturated genre there are always going to be books that follow a similar formula and they can end up predictable in some ways – which isn’t necessarily the worst thing. However, there are those that keep you on your toes and throw you a curve ball with almost every chapter. DID YOU SEE EVIE? is one that falls under the second category. While this is probably more medium paced, but definitely not anywhere near a slow burn, Smith knew how to keep us guessing from the very start to that build up of an ending. Red herrings and deception always make for an engaging read. After having a couple of lackluster reads recently, this was EXACTLY what I needed and wanted. I don’t want to give away too much and take away from the experience you’ll have, but just know that you’ll need to carve out some time before starting, because you won’t want to put it down. Now, I need to find Miranda Smith’s backlist!

I'm what you'd call a seasoned Smith reader and a new release is always eagerly anticipated.

Did You See Evie? was a pacey page turner, and as always was an entertaining and engaging read.

It kept me on my toes throughout and I didn't know who I could trust, whether they were an unreliable narrator or was it just Smith trying to throw me off kilter. Those twists just kept a comin'!

Characters were complex and I couldn't really take to any of them. I have no idea why, but it didn't stop my enjoyment of the book.

Secrets will always out and karma seeks her revenge just when you least expect it!!

Did You See Evie? by Miranda Smith

First of all I have to say I love the book title so much. Clear, eye-catching and it leads you straight into the book.

So, did you see Evie?

The story started with a sleepover celebration of the school basketball team. Cass, who's the coach led the girls team won the game. Evie, one of the players who always drew Cass's attention, as her family background and personality were quite different from the other teammates. When Cass woke up the next morning, Evie disappeared. Was her disappearance related to Coach Cass?

The plot was a wow. The twists and turns drove me to nowhere. I thought I knew the ending, but not. The author Miranda Smith built up the tension in a totally different way. The depth and excitement were what the thriller readers needed.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Bookouture and the author for my copy.

Pub date: Apr 25, 2025

An exciting sleepover to celebrate the elementary school’s success as local basketball champions goes horribly wrong when one of the young team players goes missing. With hardly any explanation as to why Evie has disappeared Coach Cass is determined to discover where her star player has gone but with the police also investigating the disappearance Cass is worried that some of her own secrets may get uncovered.

This is a lovely slow burner of a thriller which sets the scene perfectly. We get to know more about the girls in the team, their privileged backgrounds no excuse for bad behaviour and yet there is far more to this clever mystery than team rivalry. I enjoyed piecing together the pieces of the puzzle, especially as we get to know more about Cass, who is an extremely good basketball coach and yet she is held back by shadows from her past which threaten her judgement and fill her with indecision.

Cleverly done, with several twists and turns I didn’t see coming, and an ending which brings all the complicated strands of the plot together, Did You See Evie? captured my imagination and I finished the book in a couple of sittings as I couldn’t put it down until I knew just what had happened on the fateful night that Evie disappeared.

Smith is one of those authors that when they put out a new book, I want to read it. She writes thrillers that are full of deception and twisty. While the main focus of this book is finding Evie, there are red herrings and twists along the way that threw me for a loop. I enjoyed that the story felt like a flaky pastry, full of wonderful, fulfilling layers.

I appreciated the way that Cass handled the situation. So many books have the characters become investigators and they some how are able to figure out things that the police can’t. In this one, when Cass found out more information, she went to the police and informed them of the information. It just really gave it a realistic feel.

The writing is easy to read. It flows nicely and the pacing is on point. It’s very easy to read this book in a single sitting, or over a day or two. While the big reveal at the end was super surprising, the ending itself was really great. I would highly recommend this book!

My 3rd book by Miranda Smith and this one deserved nothing less than a 5 star rating! What a brilliant story that kept me guessing all the way through.

Cass was a very talented basketball player in her youth, and she has used that talent and experience to now be the head basketball coach at the private and prestigious, Manning Academy. She loves the teenage girls she coaches and the team she has built but feels a special kind of empathy for one girl called Evie. Evie doesn’t have the usual wealthy elite Manning Academy upbringing that the other girls do, her background is very much like Cass’s own poor troubled childhood, and so Cass feels a connection with Evie. Cass is a role model for the young girls in the team, soon to be married to her fiancé, Connor, in a year’s time and working in her dream job, so life is good. However, she is hiding secrets from her past that she doesn’t want anyone to know about, even Connor. When the girl’s basketball team win the district championship, the school rewards the girls with a lock-in for the night at the school and everyone is excited. However, when one evening Cass runs into an old friend of hers, Nadia, who has recently returned to town, Cass feels uneasy as Nadia knows all the past shared history and secrets she is hiding. Despite Cass moving on from her troubled childhood it seems that Nadia hasn’t and is still involved in the illegal schemes Cass used to be in too. Now she wants to pull Cass back into the life she thought she’d left behind. Nadia’s scheme is to steal the expensive Manning Academy I.T equipment and all Cass has to do is leave a door open on the night of the lock-in. On the night of the lock-in Cass feels she has no choice but to go along with Nadia’s plan or risk losing everything she holds dear and so she does what is asked of her. Four hours later, when she wakes in the early hours, not only is the door shut and the I.T equipment untouched, but more importantly Evie is missing, and no one has seen her. The police are called and launch a search for the missing teenager. Will they be able to find Evie who has mysteriously vanished into thin air?! And during the investigation might the details of Cass’s criminal past be revealed which she knows will blow her whole life, as she knows it, apart to smithereens!!

Well, this was just a fantastic read. I felt so sorry for Evie but also for Cass, who despite trying so hard to turn her life around, is blackmailed into being someone she doesn’t want to be anymore. I hated the cliquey mothers of the girls on Cass’s team and their daughters weren’t much better, Miranda Smith really did a good job writing such unlikeable characters. There was one character who I didn’t trust or like right from the very beginning (again sorry for the mystery but my reviews are spoiler free) and they did end up being untrustworthy but not for the reasons I thought! As a reader, I really felt the tension in the chapters that involved the lock in and indeed the general eerie atmosphere of the school that late at night so, again, such great writing from Miranda Smith. The twist absolutely blind sighted me! As a seasoned psychological thriller fan sometimes I have an inkling of how things might turn out or what the twist is but this twist totally came out of the blue for me, which was just fantastic!

Overall, this was brilliant. I highly recommend this for any psychological thriller genre fans and believe it wholeheartedly deserves a 5 star rating!

Thank you to NetGalley, Miranda Smith and Bookouture for my advanced reading copy. Out now.

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Oh my goodness!!! What did I just read? Evie goes missing after a locked in the school gym sleepover. How is that even possible? The book kept me up because I couldn't fall asleep until I knew what happened to Evie. Coach Cass was a great teacher and we really got to know her backstory.
If you like a story that will keep you guessing until the end, this book is for you. Miranda Smith has a great way of dropping in red herrings and a quick pace. She’s a must read author for me! Many thanks to the author, Bookouture and NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.
#DidyouSeeEvie #MirandaSmith #NetGalley #Bookouture #BooksOnTour #BookLove #Bookstagram #NewBook #ILoveBooks #BooksSetInASchool

Cassidy is living a life worlds away from her rough beginnings — now a basketball coach at Manning Academy, with three back-to-back championships under her belt. Things should be golden. But during a celebratory lock-in, one of her players, Evie, tries to tell her something — and Cass never gets to hear it. The next morning, Evie’s gone.

Cass feels the walls closing in fast. She knows her job isn’t as secure as it seems — Coach Reynolds and some of the parents would probably love to see her fail. And losing a student? That’s exactly the ammo they need. Plus, her former best friend, Nadia, has slithered back into town. Nadia’s trouble on two legs, and the night Evie vanished, she tried to drag Cass into something shady. Timing couldn’t be worse — Cass is supposed to be planning her wedding, not scrambling to hold her entire life together.

Did You See Evie is a gripping, slow-burn thriller that pulls you into Cass’s unraveling world. I found Cass incredibly easy to root for — she's tough but real, not some cardboard heroine. Nadia? Couldn’t stand her. She had bad news written all over her from page one.

If you like thrillers where you can't trust anyone and happy endings aren't guaranteed, this one’s worth your time.

Favorite Quotes:

When tragedy strikes, there’s only before and after.

It’s almost as though I can feel the oxygen being vacuumed from the room, the air replaced with a suffocating silence.


My Review:

This one kept me guessing and threw several red herrings in my path. The main character frustrated me as she was rather mono-focused and clueless and needed a few good kicks to the keister to dislodge her noggin, but she finally came around and opened her eyes. Several smacks and alarming shocks will do that to a person, both of which this wily scribbler provided in spades.

Did You See Evie is a really good psychological suspense thriller that certainly did keep me in suspense the whole way through . I’ve read quite a few books based on children going missing and this one was one of my favourites. Right from the start I was gripped by the story. As I progressed through the chapters and got to know the characters I was frantically trying to work out who the guilty person or persons were.
When the reveal came I was completely off track and I do love that when an author makes me gasp in shock and Miranda Smith did that. If you enjoy a good suspense thriller I recommend this .

Did you see Evie by Miranda Smith was truly a page turner loaded with deception and mystery. This was a story that held my attention and truly blew my mind. There were quite a few shocking revelations that I was not even close to expecting.

I'll be adding more Miranda Smith titles to my TBR after this!

I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Bookouture and Netgalley for this ARC! When Evie goes missing from a lock-in sleep over in the school gym after winning the basketball championship. No one can figure out how or why? Evie being an outsider in the school always stood out as coming from the wrong side of town, as the story unravels and the plot thickens, nothing can prepare you for the cause of her disappearance! Great page turner and didn’t see that ending coming!

Another incredible read from Miranda Smith! She is the queen of plot twists. Shocked me so many times. This book was so gripping and kept me guessing. I couldn’t put it down.

Did You See Evie? by Miranda Smith is a gripping thriller. With so many interesting twists and turns, readers want to keep flipping the pages to find out more. It fascinated me so much that I read it all in one night. This is my seventh book by Miranda Smith and I enjoyed this one as much as the others.

Thank You NetGalley and Bookouture for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

When the girls’ school basketball team win the championship, Coach Cass decides that to celebrate, they should have a lock-in at the school gymnasium with movies, pizza, and a sleepover. In the early hours of the morning Cass realises that her superstar Evie has gone missing. Where did she go?

This was a great book to read because I felt we got to know Coach Cass very well, from how she grew up on the “wrong side of the tracks” to being where she is today. I enjoyed getting to know Nadia.
Cass was a very likeable character; she is the kind of teacher I would have loved at school, firm but fair too. There were other characters whom I did not like at all, and some I warmed to as the book went on.

It seemed many people were keeping secrets, and not just about Evie going missing.

I suspected many people throughout the book, and was very surprised when the reveal happened, as I did not expect them at all.

This had me on the edge of my seat throughout. A really gripping thriller with a twist that I did not see coming... although maybe I should have. It's well written, it's realistic whoch is always my preference on a thriller and the plot is always moving forward. I hate books that feel like they have ages of filler paragraphs or that just drag things out but this was concise and all relevant to the plot. I really enjoyed it and would recommend

What could possibly go wrong?
Team wins a championship match and plans a sleepover at the gym with fun and enjoyment and then the other foot drops with the star player missing and the basketball coach, a gritty, self made person, Cass at the middle of it. Miranda has created a wonderful, emotional story that touches several delicate topics from school like mean students and bullying while also keeping the core of school intact with friendships and camaraderie and secrets. Cass' own life is laid bare with her work under question and job at stake and everything else under the sun keeping her stressed while the mystery deepens and her life becomes a slow roast.
The cast of characters is good and evenly represented and the story though even paced is a bit slow for my liking. Miranda excels in the storytelling and the book holds interest throughout.
Recommended.

I was looking for a thriller and this one did not disappoint. I delightfully predicted a thing or two but I never expected a lot of things to happen. My first Miranda Smith debating what I'll read next 😉

I've been following this author for quite some time now and at the beginning, it was hit or miss but her writing has evolved in the best way and I really enjoy nearly everything she writes now. I also enjoy the length. Thrillers like this that run too long just wear me out.

I enjoyed this one. The FMC was likeable and the situation felt realistic. Felt long at certain points but overall would recommend!