“Someone’s missing. Someone’s dead. Everyone’s lying.”

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Our Little Secret by Kiersten Modglin: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Synopsis of Our Little Secret by Kiersten Modglin

Release date: You can purchase this on August 24, 2021!

Preorder here.

“Bad things don’t happen in Cason Glen.”

Until one of the town’s most respected professionals goes missing. This small, tight-knit subdivision is supposed to be safe, but the residents will quickly discover that the home and community they grew up in isn’t quite what it seems.

Someone is missing.

Someone is lying

And someone will go to any lengths to keep their secrets buried at the bottom of the lake.

My Thoughts

I received an ARC of Our Little Secret by Kiersten Modglin, straight from the author herself, and was beyond thrilled to get to read this book prior to its release date and tell the world my thoughts! Kiersten Modglin has been catching my eye for awhile now; almost every Psychological Thriller Book Club I’m part of on social media mentions her books at least once a day, and The Arrangement is sitting in my TBR stack as we speak.

From the hype I’ve seen I knew that accepting this ARC was a no brainer, and couldn’t wait to dive into these secrets the residents of Cason Glen were keeping.

The story follows six childhood friends – all adults now, married, with children of their own. When one is murdered and another goes missing, the circle is torn apart. No one can understand why charming, successful, high school teacher Ted Dupont would just up and leave his beautiful wife Stephanie and their twin teenage boys.

But Ted’s disappearance isn’t the only mystery; Stephanie swears she saw a car driving into the lake on her way home from work, and Enzo, the town’s Mayor, and Jude, the town’s sheriff are both determined to cover it up. But why?

You quickly learn that every single person in this story has a secret they’re hiding, but like any good mystery, you don’t quite find out exactly what those secrets are until the very end. Giving you plenty of time to concoct your own theories and see if they play out to be true or false.

I loved that this book gave me an ending I didn’t quite see coming (although I guessed the person I’m not mentioning had something to do with the thing I’m also not mentioning.. because #spoileralert, and those only occur in Book Chat on this site).

I did feel every now and then like some details were glazed over. For starters, the book starts out with Stephanie’s call to the sheriff’s department reporting a car going into the lake. We find out pretty quickly that both Enzo and Jude don’t want to follow up on this claim, and we also find out (kind of a spoiler but not really) that Stephanie IS making the story up – but we never circle back to it, not even is it mentioned one more time, until the very end. And Stephanie has a really big role in this book, so I found it a little strange that her initial call was never even brought up again, even during the chapters from her point of view.

I also really appreciate stories where the characters are described in detail. I like knowing their hair color, what they’re wearing, etc. It helps set the tone for how I picture them in my mind, and this book didn’t really do that. I think toward the end we find out that Enzo has black curly hair.

But, those are nitpicky things. Ultimately I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads because it held my attention, I flew threw it, and the twist was pretty clever and one that I couldn’t really (only kind of) see coming. (Again, I guessed the involvement, but had no idea to the extent!)

I can’t wait to start The Arrangement next and compare! I’ve heard that one is a TOTAL MIND BLOWER so you know I’m thrilled!