“A Halloween fancy dress party in the deep, dark woods? Sounds like trouble!”

A Halloween party in the middle of the woods is the perfect place for a killer to go unnoticed – right? When a teenage party gets out of hand and one of the attendees turns up dead, apparently pushed from a folly, everyone is a suspect. The police are eager to find out who was involved so they can avoid a mass panic and perhaps more deaths. The old mining site where the folly sits is already home to the legend of ‘Sally In the Wood’, a ghostly young woman dressed in white who is often sighted in the area, usually preceding a death – and they really don’t need mass hysteria kicking in with a killer potentially on the loose. The fact that the victim was dressed as Sally in the Wood for the fancy dress party just has to be a coincidence, surely?

Local Detective Ben Case is soon on…well, the case. Ben’s daughter Ellie is friendly with the group who were at the party, but he knows that she was at home with her Mum, his newly estranged ex-wife Rachel on the night of the murder. Ellie was supposed to be staying overnight with Ben and his new partner, and Ben is still angry that Rachel called her home and changed their plans last minute. However all is not as it seems. When they finally get chance to discuss this it becomes apparently that Ellie lied to both her parents, pretended her Mum had called her home and snuck out to the party in the woods. Rachel is a school guidance counsellor at Ellie’s school and they eventually realise that not only was Ellie there, but she’s lied about it, and so has everyone else – but why?

The next morning, we also see Ellie dealing with the aftermath of the party the next morning, and heading back to the woods to hide some bloodstained clothes. The story unfolds from several different perspectives covering the police investigation, the school staff, the party attendees, and each one peels back another layer of secrets and confusion. There’s the already mentioned urban legend about ‘Sally in the Wood’ that starts off strong in the prologue and continues as a running theme throughout the novel. I enjoyed this aspect of the book as it added to the gothic theme and made me wonder if there was something more sinister about the events of these winter nights than we first thought.

What I enjoyed about this book was that the characterisation was really good – I felt like every character that was introduced had a right to be there and wasn’t just ‘making up the numbers’. I also enjoyed that it was a pretty slow burn until the end when it went a bit crazy heading towards the resolution. There is a menacing undertone that builds with the slow pace and there were a lot of suspects in this novel, many of them with both reason and opportunity. There’s also a couple of red herrings too, which keep things interesting and never really let you feel confident enough that you’re right about who the culprit is. The parents are really unaware of what teenage kids get up to though, and ironically, they seem to let them get away with murder. This is my first Hannah Richell novel, but I’m sure after this I’ll be reaching for more!

Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for providing an advance copy of this book. This is my honest review.

Published by Simon & Schuster on 3 July, 2025.

4/5

Meet the Author:Hannah Richell

I wrote my debut novel, Secrets of the Tides, around the time my first child was born. Since then, I’ve written four novels, with my fifth, The Search Party, to be published by Simon & Schuster in 2024. My work is available in twenty-four territories and has been translated into nineteen languages. My books have been selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club, the Waterstones Book Club, WHSmith Book of the Week, shortlisted for two ABIAs and an Indie Book Award in Australia, as well as shortlisted for the Bonniers Bokklubb Book of the Year Award in Sweden.

Read more at Hannah’s GoodReads page