As I saw this was recommended by Nicci French I jumped on this. Very tense but also has some bittersweet moments. A story of family, friendships and betrayal. I like books tfst are set now and then so enjoyed this immensely. Buy it with Christmas money or vouchers!
5/5 on goodreads

This book, which I received via Netgalley, was initially a slow burner but part way through it really did pick up pace.

The story is told on a dual timeline 30 years apart as a cold case is re-opened on the discovery of the body of a girl who went missing 30 years apart. This telling does not muddy the waters as some that flit back and forth, but neither does it give many clues away.

This felt very much like the first novel of a potential police series with an introduction only to the detectives and I really didn't feel we were fed more than titbits regarding their pasts.

I was unable to predict the ending although this was not really due to twists, turns or red herrings more that I just needed more evidence, much like the detectives did.. When all the evidence was presented the conclusion was totally believable.

If I am right and there is more to come, I look forward to reading other offerings by Gytha Lodge.

She LIes in Wait is an excellent Police Procedural story.Aurora Jackson disappeared 30 years ago from a camping trip with 5 other young friends,remains are found which turn out to be hers.DCI Jonas Sheens who went to school with the group now has to investigate what has happened and who is the murderer.The story grips you from the beginning and is told over two timelines ,the present and the past with Aurora telling her story .I didn't guess who was responsible,all the characters were well written,a very enjoyable read .I look forward to the next book in the series .Many thanks to the Publisher,the Author and NetGalley for my review copy in return for an honest review.

This book is a thriller that leads you down several blind alleys in the pursuit of a murderer.

I really enjoyed this book, it was gritty and unpredictable. A must read.

I love this new police procedural and can’t wait for the second DCI Jonah Sheens. For a full review, head over to tumblr https://joebloggshere.tumblr.com/post/181254558006/she-lies-in-wait-by-gytha-lodge-i-loved-this-new

I really enjoyed She Lies In Wait by Gytha Lodge. In the past, seven teenagers go camping in the woods on a warm summer evening. They get drunk, they swim, and some of them sleep together. So far, so normal. In the early morning, no one can find Aurora Jackson. At fourteen, she was the youngest of the group, taking along with her obnoxious older sister. A massive search takes place, but Aurora is never found.
Cut to the present day, and a body is found in the woods. DCI Sheens and his team are called in to investigate. Sheens went to school with all seven campers, and was involved with the search. It is Aurora. All six of the survivors must be spoken to, and things start to cone apart for them. Only one of them, Jojo, is particularly nice.
The book is meant to be first in a series featuring DCI Sheens and his team. The characterisation of the team needs a bit of work. They are not that coloured-in as people yet, but they have potential. While it is possible to guess the identity of the killer very early on, it doesn't detract from your enjoyment much. Three stars for the writing, and four for the story.

Not my usual genre but this book had me gripped throughout. Will be looking out for more of the same!

I found this to be a chilling read throughout. The plot is intricate, the characters fulsome and the book hard to put down. The pace continues to build and I was kept guessing right till the bitter end. It’s an excellent debut and I hope that we are going to hear more from Jonah Sheens and his team in future.

When a family on a camping holiday make the gruesome discovery of human bones, it soon becomes evident that these are the remains of Aurora, the young girl who went missing 30 years previously whilst camping with her older sister and friends. The case is re-opened and Jonah Sheens is placed in charge of the investigation.
The mystery is not only whether one of the 6 friends knows more than they are telling, but whether one of them is actually responsible for the murder of Aurora. The procedural aspect of the book worked well, and there is an added layer in that Jonah had interacted with the group of friends as a teenager himself, and may have secrets of his own to hide. I think where the book really came into its own though was the flashbacks to the group of friends, the way that Aurora interacted with them all, and then how their relationships and life paths changed as a result of Aurora's disappearance.
This is a great book that I really enjoyed and I look forward to seeing what the author writes about next.

My thanks go to the publishers and net galley for the advanced copy in return for an honest review.

A promising debut novel from Gytha Lodge. Thirty years ago a teenage girl Aurora, went missing during a camping trip with her older sister and five of her friends. Despite an extensive search she was not found until a chance discovery after three decades. A murder enquiry was launched, headed by DCI Jonah Sheens. A local man, he recalled the incident as a young constable and had always wondered what had happened to Aurora. The six remaining campers are all suspects and the story unravels to discover exactly what went on during that fateful night. The six, now mainly successful with very different lives had stayed in touch which did seem rather unlikely. A slow, detailed reveal rather than a fast paced page turner, this story was well written but I felt it was slightly lacking in shock and suspense. More could have been made of the threats and fear instilled to make it into a true thriller but a good start to what I assume will be the first featuring this detective.

She Lies In Wait is a good introduction to a new police procedural series featuring DCI Jonah Sheens. Thirty years after the disappearance of Aurora Jackson, her body is discovered close to where she went missing three decades earlier. Her discovery is about to bring back together the people she was with, at the time she disappeared, in a big way. One of them could be responsible for her murder. Are they, at last, going to find out who killed her?

Just picture it, you’re out walking in the woods, and you kneel down to pull what you think is a root from the undergrowth, and you grasp what is actually a human finger. This is the opening scene that we are faced with when the body of a young girl missing for thirty years is found.

I love reading a crime novel where we are faced with a small group of suspects who all know each other. You’re never sure who you can trust in the group, and you can’t tell who is lying or telling the truth. What will happen to them all when it finally comes out? I think if you enjoy crime novels with a literary edge, then this is definitely the book for you. Don’t expect a pacy read from this book. While Gytha Lodge’s writing is very immersive and is very easy to get into I wouldn’t call it a quick read, but there is a cast of intriguing characters. I found the lead detective DCI Jonah Sheens, particularly interesting who is already connected to this case as he knew Aurora and the group of friends who she hung out with from school. We have Topaz, Aurora’s older sister, who now lives in Scotland, Daniel, now a politician, Connor, Jojo and Coralie; risk-taker and star athlete, Brett. I think many readers may find it easy to point to the person responsible for the crime, but for me, it was the reasons why they did it that had me gripped, and it was what I wanted to find out.

The story here takes time to build as the police re-open the investigation into Aurora Jackson’s disappearance. There is a painstaking task ahead of them as they have to go over old ground, but all these years’ later new pieces of information begin to come to light which could finally shed light on what happened to Aurora in 1983.
I think the flashback scenes were the parts of this novel that I was most intrigued by. Gytha Lodge gradually begins to reveal to us the build-up to Aurora’s disappearance, and we start to see a picture develop of the type of people who her friends actually were and what they are capable of.

I thought the ending of this book was very satisfying, and I think it is an ending that will haunt the reader for a while, I keep thinking back to those final lines. Overall I found this an enjoyable read; it is an immersive page-turner that I’m sure will have fans looking out for more from this author. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with an advance review copy of the book to read.

I enjoyed this book. It did seem a very long book and the end took a long time coming. The friends relationships took a great deal of unravelling. However it was a different kind of story, much along the lines of Donna Tart's Secret History many years ago. That book was groundbreaking and everyone loved it. However I am not sure that I would feel the same about this one.

I did find it interesting though but to me it was not a totally absorbing book.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Im afraid this wasn’t the book for me. The premise was intriguing enough - a girl and her father find a dead body in the woods, who is discovered to be Aurora who went missing 30 years ago. The DI on the case was the same age as Aurora and grew up together although they weren’t friends. The book has flashbacks to the past leading up to the climax. I think, personally, for me the problem was that I found the characters too contrived and generic, especially the flashbacks scenes which in my opinion contained too many characters that weren’t fleshed out enough. I just didn’t find the characters emotionally engaging enough to sustain my interest. I’m afraid it’s 2.5/5

This was a slow read for me but worth it. Such a sad tale in so many ways. I would totally recommend it

An excellently constructed whodunnit.
This is an easy but gripping read and one that I was loathe to put down.
The two timelines worked well and information is slowly drip fed in a series of revelations that really work.
Loved the writing style overall and the conclusion left no loose ends.
Will look forward to the next novel by this talented writer.

Enjoyed this book and changed my mind a few times about the killer. It was interesting to get first person narratives from the victim as the night progressed, which ultimately lead to the revelation. It's a fast paced read with well fleshed out characters. Looking forward to more from the author in the future!

I hate giving this book a four; it is truly riveting! I could not put it down! I read through the night, wanting very much to know who killed her, and why? I knew from the beginning who did it; the Author does a great job of making you doubt yourself. However, I have read many books over the years, remember precisely what it was like to be that young, not do drugs, be a bookworm, when all of your friends were partying. I knew immediately due to the strange behavior of the murderer! This is an incredible book, will make an excellent movie, the kind only the British can do! I did not like the constant profanity used, I have never liked it; I grew up during this period, all of their behavior made me ill then, it still does! The characters are not likable, not even her sister; especially not her sister, I have one just like her! Which means I did not like the ending! It should have that in there; yet it should have ended with the scene in Jonah's office, remembering the beautiful young girl that he worked thirty years to find! Just my opinion. Officers are all likable, especially DCI Jonah! They will make a great series, which I hope the Author considers, human yes, perfect no. Great in-depth characterization of everyone, great mystery, you feel such gut-wrenching anxiety, knowing she is going to die, and you cannot stop it! Incredible writing, incredible, but entirely believable story! Awesome!
I highly recommend! Thank you Netgalley!

Our friends are usually people we trust implicitly. But what if those who you have known for years and confided in actually become suspects in your sister's disappearance and death, her murder, as it turns out to be? How do you know who to trust now?

Such is the dilemma for Topaz Jackson when her younger sister Aurora’s body is discovered 30 years after her disappearance, at the very same campsite where she herself had spent a few wild, intoxicated hours with her friends. Then she had been irritated by the annoying presence of her naive and gauche 14 year old sister, but determined to party on as planned.

It falls to DCI Jonah Sheen, a flawed but likeable cop with links to this group of friends from the past, to unravel the truth and discover who is culpable or not. Lies and secrets abound as suspicion shifts, making it challenging to get to the root of what really happened at the campsite.

The friends' account of that night fluctuates but details eventually emerge. A substantial stash of Dexedrine was brought with them. A tiny percentage was used and the rest hastily concealed, in an effort to foil the cops who initially investigated Aurora's disappearance. Drink flowed freely, jealousy was rife, sexual activity took place and hurt feelings simmered under the surface.

Aurora appeared to have been more of a cautious onlooker than anything else, an innocent sitting on the sidelines, sensing her own immaturity and swinging between a desperate desire to fit in and be perceived as cool as her sister was, and a natural aversion to all that was going on before her.

This is a compelling and captivating read with an eclectic mix of characters, plenty of twists and turns and surprises enough to keep you guessing to the end. The various backstories alone would make for an intriguing sequel. A convincing and gripping page-turner and a stunning debut novel I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend.

Firstly my thanks to netgalley and Penguin for the chance to read this in exchange for an honest review.
Six teenagers on an overnight camping trip in the New Forest, add in a cocktail of alcohol and drugs and you’ve got a recipe for tragedy as one of them goes missing. Skip forward thirty years to the discovery of a body and there’s an interesting police procedural novel to read. I wondered how accurately the relationships were portrayed, recognising the teenage ones but wondering what impact Aurora’s death actually would have had amongst the group who surely must have questioned the role and potential responsibility of the others in the group. This was a well written story although I struggled a little with the pace, the reader was given information that seemed to me unnecessary if this is to be a standalone work. It may be that there will be a series of novels with Jonah Sheen and his team in which case this is building knowledge that may feed into further stories. For me this novel took some disciplined reading, it was always easy to put down and harder to pick up again.

This book had me gripped from the beginning with the easy writing style which leads you into the story about six friends and what happened in 1983 to Topaz's sister. The book has you guessing who the killer is and makes you marvel at the painful fragility of life and death and the choices we make and what those consequences can mean. I really enjoyed this thriller because of the strong voices of the characters. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me review this book.