This is the debut novel by Gytha Lodge. ‘She Lies in Wait’ is a thoroughly entertaining read.

In 1983 seven teenagers go camping and one goes missing. A young police officer is involved in searching for Aurora Jackson during the weeks that follow. It has always left him wondering what happened.

Finally her body is uncovered some 30 years later when he is a DCI and he takes charge of the murder hunt. Everyone involved has something to hide including the DCI as the new Detective Constable on the case finds out.

The story goes from present day back to 1983 to get a perspective of the teenagers and their drug taking and alcohol drinking. I found the characters well developed and the pace great. There are enough red herrings and twists and turns to keep interest until the end. I warmed to JoJo more than the rest of the characters.

Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin UK, Michael Joseph and Gytha Lodge for my ARC in return from my honest review.

Excellent read. Highly recommended.

A brilliant story that has enough clever twists in the plot to leave you dizzy. Well written with well thought out characters. This book kept me guessing right to the end. A deliciously dark thriller with lots of creepy moments and plenty of suspense. Well worth reading and highly enjoyable, I couldn't put it down

A 5 star book, enjoyed from the start to the end, a real page turner, very much enjoyed reading. An well written web of deceit and lies, will look forward to any future work by this author.

Loved this book and could not put it down. A murder case reopened and everyone involved holding on to the lies and deceit for many years. Six friends, out camping and drink and drugs involved. The twist and turns in this dark thriller keep the reader on his/her toes. A great story, wonderfully written.

This is a well written,gripping story which gets on with the job and does not have unnecessary padding or description. The reader may try to guess the ending but that is not easy ! There are believable characters all carefully interwoven. It would be a very good television crime series. Read it! It is a must!

Could. Not. Put. It. Down!!!! Gripping tale of a gang of friends who years later discover the truth about what really happened the night Aurora disappeared

The names of the individuals are really quite bizarre but beyond that this is a gripping tale that will see you turning pages well into the evening

This one will leave you guessing, a page turner with so many twists and turns you will need your back massaged before you finish. 7 Teens go camping and one the youngest a 14-year-old girl called Aurora doesn't survive the weekend. It takes 30 years to finally find her and it's not good news. What follows is the investigation that seeks to find the truth and the things teenagers hid rather than admit to at the time. It's one of them the killer or was there someone else in the woods that fateful night over 30 years before.
It's a child out camping with her mum and dad in the New Forest this time time finds a finger that turns out to be Auroras and the rest of the body plus the hidden drugs. So CID from Southampton with new recruit Hanson set out to find the truth and troll through the evidence from the last 30 years, plus all the new info from the current set of interviews.
I really enjoyed this book loved it in fact and hope you do it has me hooked and thinking trying to work out where each page fitted into the truth as i guessed my way to the wrong conclusion. The way Gytha Lodge (what a great name) captured my imagination and kept me entertained as only truly wonderful authors can. I hope you love it as much asi did andi hope you but it becausei don't think you will want to miss out on this year for your eyes and mind.

I really enjoyed this book, it had a great story line and good characters. The fact that it is set in the New Forest made it quite relevant as I live in Hampshire. I look forward to finding out more of the back stories of the detectives in this series.

This is really one to keep you on your toes., every scenario passes through your mind and each bit of behaviour makes you second guess and question everyone potentially involved.... Well worth every moment of this story!

"She Lies In Wait" proves to be a very clever title in that this book is a bit of a sleeper. It starts out as a fairly standard police procedural, heavy on the procedural, but builds into a tense and powerful mystery. Just before halfway through the whole mood just shifts, suddenly every character acquires a dozen extra layers and becomes enjoyably more complex. And towards the end, it becomes one of those books you need to finish. And when the resolution comes in the final pages there's a sense of release, as with the characters.

That craving for a conclusion is inevitable really. The story traces the disappearance of a barely teenage girl and the discovery of her body some thirty years later. It follows both timelines, the investigation takes centre stage, but woven between are the events of the camping trip where she had last been seen. The more we learn, the more the tension builds, the more invested you become. Without realising I had been sucked deeper and deeper into the mystery, and the more I wanted to know that the puzzle of Aurora's death was solved.

The double timeline meant we got to see additional facets of the characters. How they'd changed over the years, and why, became mini-mysteries in their own rights. It was a great way of humanising people I didn't always feel I'd like otherwise. I may not have warmed to them all, but I could feel for even those who I would want to avoid. Although Lodge clearly doesn't need whole books to make her characters that interesting, some of the smallest roles have a huge impact in a small space. And as much as Sheens and Hanson bring the police to life, other officers are slightly muted, allowed the best parts of the story to shine.

As for the mystery itself? You can't ask for much more. It tantalises and teases you. It will also slap you round the face at times. And it's all the richer for everything it offers. This is a stunning debut, and one that really merits the time to read it. It's worth carving out a little solitude to settle down and read. I'm sure you can read it on the train to work and it'll be fascinating, but in those quiet times with this book, I found it took on another dimension, The music playing along would fade as I got lost in the story, with so many remote locations it felt like a luxury to read it in peace. It felt more nuanced when I could shut everything else out.

Steel yourself for a ride and dive in. This is a gem waiting to be discovered.

Brilliant! Amazing how the story builds on each of the characters all the way through, without giving anything away until the end. A proper whodunnit.

She Lies In Wait is one of those books that surprises you and whose ending you genuinely didn't see coming. I read this over three or so sittings, thinking about it inbetween and just wanting to get back to it to see what was going to happen. All of the characters are intriguing but flawed and draw you in. This is a fantastic read.

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.

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.

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.