Caite Dolan-Leach

Happy Publication Day! (May 10, 2022)

3.5⭐️

Olivia Reed is a television celebrity whose public meltdown and scandalous love life plastered across the tabloids becomes a PR disaster. Her friend /manager Jess packs her off to a spiritual retreat in Upstate New York ,the House of Light. Though Olivia had been to similar facilities in the past , she correctly perceives that the House of Light is not quite as transparent about its ideologies and motivations and that behind all the yoga, clean eating and detox sessions there is something not quite right with the way things are.

At the House of light she meets Ava who seems to be a regular and a conspiracy theorist. When the dead body of a young girl is found floating in the lake on the property, Ava shares her theories about the deaths of several young girls in the same vicinity that were ruled as suicide but occurred on dates corresponding to seasonal equinoxes , all these dead girls having some connection to the House of Light. Ava, on her part is aware of Olivia’s celebrity status and believes that Olivia can attract enough public interest in the cases to warrant further investigation . This information fuels Olivia’s initial misgivings and she embarks on a quest to find out more about the facility and leader and acolytes who are running the show. She does break some rules and her covert poking around the facility arouses suspicion which results in her being asked to leave the premises.

This proves to be to her advantage and she starts a podcast, a venture she had planned with Ava in the House of Light and it goes viral, engaging the efforts a huge fan base of internet sleuths whose investigations unearth clues and facts that aid Olivia in her efforts. Not everyone is a fan of her podcast , however, and she becomes the target of warnings and threats of further harm from the people involved . She also suspects that her being sent to the House of Light might not have been a coincidence. What remains to be seen is how he she unravels the mystery behind the deaths and uncovers more about the people involved while keeping herself out of harm’s way.

Dark Circles by Caite Dolan-Leach is an engaging read with interesting characters, an intriguing plot and plenty of atmospheric tension. The podcast element wherein the protagonist discusses the progress of investigation in real time strengthens the narrative. I did feel that the pace dragged a bit in places but it really picks up at the halfway mark. I enjoyed the mystery and the setting of this very readable novel with twists and turns that keep you absorbed till the very end.

I received an eARC from NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine in exchange for an honest review.… (meer)

A rare 5 stars from me. This book was a puzzle from beginning to end, A to Z. Being Caite Dolan-Leach's first novel, I look forward to what she has in store for the future. This was truly unlike anything else I've read. You never quite knew what was right and what was wrong, or where you were going to end up. It had me guessing and trying to figure out the ending the entire time and I was not expecting where we finished. I could hardly put it down.

All in all, if you like dysfunctional family drama, puzzles, suspense, or whodunit novels, you will like this. If you liked Gone Girl or are a fan of Riley Sager or Tana French you will probably enjoy this.… (meer)

Okay, this is a tough one to rate because I really really wanted to like this one.

I enjoyed the first part immensely and it captivated me. Olivia is an actress going to stay in this wellness retreat but learns it’s a whole lot more than just a retreat after seeing a dead body being pulled out of a lake.
The story goes back and forth from present day and to a podcast she is producing about a true crime case linking deaths of 4 women.

However, after 25% of the book it just began to drone and wane on and it was so convoluted to make sense of what was going on and what direction it was going in. I stopped at 70% and I rarely do that but it just didn’t get any better for me.

Too many books too little time.… (meer)

This book is squarely in my wheelhouse and was probably the most engaging read I've picked up this year. I've always loved books with the equivalent of an ensemble cast and where the characters are not necessarily likable. Think Secret History by Donna Tartt, The Girls by Emma Cline, or Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman, and you'll get my drift. If you need to love the characters to enjoy a novel, I don't suggest picking this one up.

Mack, Chloe, Louisa, Beau and Jack are present day millenial types who decide to try to live sustainably off the land, growing their own food, and sans electricity or plumbing in upstate New York. As someone who was born in Ithaca and lived upstate for twenty years, I think the characterization of upstate NY and the weather and challenges with living off the land year around were well portrayed. There's a lot of underlying tension, both hostile and sexual, in this book, not simply amongst the five aforementioned, but with the neighboring Collective.

The author does a nice job building suspense throughout though I felt like there were a few unanswered plot points in the end that made for a less than perfectly satisfying reading experience. Nonetheless, I love a dark, suspenseful, character driven novel, and this one checked a lot of boxes for me personally.… (meer)