11 March 2026

This was such a fun, sharp, bingeable read — the kind where you say “just one more chapter” and suddenly it’s midnight.

The premise alone had me hooked: Lucy wakes up covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood… and she can’t remember what happened. The whole town is convinced she did it. Honestly? Some days, even she thinks she might have. Add in a wildly popular true crime podcast reopening the case years later, and I was all in.

The podcast element is brilliantly done. The transcripts woven through the story give it that addictive, Serial-style energy (you can practically hear the theme music playing). Ben Owens, the charming and slightly opportunistic host, adds a layer of commentary that both fuels the investigation and subtly critiques our obsession with true crime. It’s clever without being heavy-handed.

Lucy herself is what really makes this book shine. She’s dry, sarcastic, and refreshingly self-aware. I loved her dark sense of humour — especially when directed at the judgmental small-town dynamics she’s forced to step back into. She doesn’t come across as a fragile, wide-eyed accused woman; she’s prickly, defensive, and sometimes downright rude. Which made her feel real.

The small Texas town setting is perfect. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone has an opinion. And everyone definitely remembers that night. The layers of gossip, old grudges, and golden-girl mythology surrounding Lucy and Savvy make the mystery feel personal rather than procedural.

In terms of the mystery itself, I thought it was tightly plotted and genuinely twisty. I had theories — several — and I still didn’t fully land on the truth. The pacing moves quickly, and the short chapters make it dangerously easy to devour.

Why four stars instead of five? For me, some of the secondary characters felt slightly more like vehicles for the plot than fully fleshed-out people. And while I loved the podcast structure, there were moments where it smoothed over complexities that I might have liked to be explored a little more deeply.

That said, this book absolutely delivers on entertainment. It’s smart, fast-paced, and just the right amount of dark. It plays with memory, perception, and the uncomfortable reality that sometimes the story people believe matters more than the truth.

If you love unreliable narrators, messy female friendships, and true crime vibes with a modern twist, this one is well worth picking up. Darkly funny, twisty, and seriously addictive — a solid four-star read for me.