Echo Ridge is your typical small American town, desperate for everyone to believe their facade of perfection. When Ellery and her twin brother, Ezra, move there when their mom is sent to rehab, they’re about to learn how many secrets hide behind that facade. Her aunt went missing at the age of seventeen. Five years ago, the town’s homecoming queen was killed. Now, someone has started posting menacing messages around town threatening the newest homecoming queen nominees. Ellery quickly learns that everyone in town is hiding something–and all the disappearance might be more connected than anyone thought.
Just like in One of Us Is Lying, Karen McManus is a queen at writing a mystery filled with red herrings. Just when you think you have the mystery figured out, she throws another wrench into the story, leaving you backpedaling and trying to figure out what exactly you missed. This book fits that to a tee. How do authors come up with these twists? They’re fantastic.
This book definitely had that high school feel to it, and I liked the way that that the secrets slowly become linked the more you learned about them and the people that populated the tiny town of Echo Ridge. Echo Ridge itself was crafted masterfully; I felt like I was easily transported to this town that McManus had created, populated with its own Halloween/murder themed park. In a town known for its disappearances of girls. It was the perfect backdrop for the story that McManus created.
The only thing that bothered me about this book was how difficult I found it to follow how certain characters were connected. While this was probably purposeful on the part of making the mystery more twisty, I think I missed some things because I didn’t realize certain characters were connected.
Other than that, this is a twisty mystery you’ll definitely want to get your hands on when it comes out this January!
4.5/5 stars