Information:
- Author: Danielle Valentine
- Genre: Thriller, Horror
- Page Count: 279
- Year Published: 2024
Read This if You Like:
- Upstate NY settings
- Thrillers that take place in just 24 hours
- Summer Camp Thrillers
- Unsolved crimes returning with a vengeance
- Dual POV
- Flashback chapters
- Great twists
- Good old slasher stories
- Family Secrets
Spoiler-Free Summary:
On June 13th, 2008, 3 people were found to be murdered at Camp Lost Lake, NY, all killed by a person in a witch mask whose signature murder weapon was a bow and arrow. Now, 16 years later, Camp Lost Lake is reopening, and two girls have arrived, their goal to get some answers about their lives and how they are connected to the murders. Olivia was born during the murders, and just discovered that her real dad may not actually be the person she calls “Dad”- and Camp Lost Lake may have answers. Meanwhile, Reagan has been on the run her entire life- her mom is the one whose thought to be “The Witch of Lost Lake” that murdered everyone that night, which Reagan knows isn’t true, and a search around Camp Lost Lake will surely bring up some evidence to clear her name. But when Olivia and Reagan encounter each other on their respective searches, it brings up a mountain of uncovered secrets that reveal everyone is lying about what happened the night of the murders, and the truth is more shocking then either of the girls could imagine. But the other problem? The Witch of Lost Lake is back- and they’re going to make sure that Olivia and Regan don’t survive the night.
Review/Opinions:
Last year, I read How to Survive Your Murder, also by Danielle Valentine (aka Danielle Vega on her older works), which had a similar plot to this one with one night to solve a murder as they return, but with time travel and a more horror-movie like approach. And don’t get me wrong, the twists in that book were great… but the writing put so much emphasis on naming and referencing every single real life horror and slasher film that it tainted the entire book. But I believe in second chances, so I decided to give her newest YA release a try. And this one definitely redeemed the author for me. For starters, there’s barely any pop culture references at all (they do reference the fictional podcast created in How to Survive Your Murder in this story, but other than that the two books aren’t connected in any way, and are definitely standalone reads.) Also, this book was the perfect way to kick off my Fall Thriller reads.
Guys, you are not prepared for how many twists this book has. It starts with one of my favorite things in a thriller novel: a tense prologue to hook readers and set up the story. After that, it takes some time for things to pick up more, but when Olivia and Reagan encounter each other, then we launch into a total thrill ride. There’s a bunch of red herrings, shocking reveals, and more. This book also has rather good pacing due to the constant twists, excluding the slow beginning, and it leads to a totally jaw-dropping climax. And it all takes place in just one day and night (except for the epilogue), adding a more tense feel since the characters have only a few hours to find the truth before they are possibly killed. Plus, I liked how the murder motive was more like one you would find in a more true-crime like story while this book was more traditional slasher, I think that will help find a nice balance between readers. I will say this does have the worst kind of unclear ending for a thriller novel, so you’ve been warned. I didn’t really have any audible gasping moments during the twists and found that the last twist (in the epilogue) was very unexplained, left a massive plot hole, and seemed kind of added on just to shock readers than add much to the story, but overall the twists were really fun to read though. I feel like this would translate really well to a horror movie.
The character development is somewhat lacking in this because of focus on the twists, however. If any characters have development, it’s mostly because they are sharing a secret that contributes to identifying the truth about the killer. There’s quite a few side characters that needed a lot more development and establishment of their personalities, because typical thriller stuff gets in the way of their lives. Even Reagan and Olivia don’t really change much except having greater understanding of their families due to the secrets they discover. I guess they do become a little braver because of what they do during the climax though… I think the real strength of the characters in this novel is their relationships. Olivia and Reagan don’t really trust each other when they first meet, but they end up working together and end up bonding in the epilogue. There’s also a small little side sapphic romance between Reagan and Olivia’s friend Hazel that develops as everyone works to escape the killer, and it was definitely a grumpy/sunshine pairing. It wasn’t really necessary, but it was still cute and helped break up the tension a little. (Also, Hazel was just pure comic relief.)
I did like how this book effectively used its chapter structure. It’s mostly Dual POV that switches between Olivia and Reagan’s perspective, so we get different viewpoints on what’s going on as everyone works to survive. It did get a bit choppy at points, because the two girls actually aren’t in the same place often in the story, and pretty much every chapter’s last line was a twist reveal, so often after I was left in shock I would have to wait to gain an explanation for the twist because of a chapter from the other POV. In between the normal chapters, there were also third-person flashback chapters from the days and hours leading up to the original murders, which helped fill in plot gaps and give us a more immersive perspective for some of the past events.
Overall, although the book was let down by limited character development in favor of plot as well as some minor structural issues, I overall found this to be one of the better YA thrillers I’ve read in a while. I wouldn’t consider Danielle Valentine an auto-buy author just yet because of my disappointment with How to Survive your Murder, but this book was definitely a step above from that one, and I believe all fans of a tense YA thriller with many shocking twists should read this.
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