S. F. Prescott

Gytha Lodge is a multi-award-winning playwright, novelist and writer for video games and screen. She is also a single parent who blogs about the ridiculousness of bringing up a mega-nerd small boy. Her debut crime novel, She Lies in Wait, has been published by Penguin Random House in the US and UK, and has also been translated into 12 other languages. It became an international bestseller in 2019, and was a Richard and Judy book club pick, as well as a Sunday Times and New York Times crime pick.

Published August 8th, 2023.

The synopsis hooked me right away and I loved the premise of using an ancestry website to work in a thriller angle. It’s a topic I’ve always been interested in and it brought something unique to the genre I hadn’t read before. The characters and their relationships felt very authentic to me and I enjoyed switching between POVs and timelines as it kept me engaged, turning the pages into the early hours of the morning. The descriptions were grisly without glorifying the violence, something I also liked. It wasn’t until after I finished reading that I realized this book is part of a series. The writing was so smooth it eased me into the setting and characters, making it an enjoyable read without knowledge of the other books before it. I found the pace steady and the dialogue flowed with ease, holding my attention as I pieced everything together. I would like to read the rest of the books in order to get a feel for all the characters properly. Not a critique on the book, just a personal preference.

For readers who enjoy multiple POVs, twists, and dark subject matter.

Synopsis:

When the police found the first body, left on a bonfire in the forest, they worried it had the hallmarks of a serial killer.

Now, as they find the second, they know for sure.

Panic about the “Bonfire Killer” quickly spreads through the  sedate suburban area of Southampton. Women are urged not to travel alone at night, and constant vigilance is encouraged among the local residents. But single mom Aisling Cooley has a lot to distract her: two beloved teenage sons and a quest to find her long-lost father, whom she hasn’t seen since she was a teenager.

After much debate, she decides to upload her DNA to an ancestry website. When she gets a match she is filled with an anxious excitement that her questions about her father’s disappearance from her life might finally be answered.

But to her horror, it’s not her father who’s found her. It’s a detective.

And they say her DNA is a close match for the Bonfire Killer. . . .