Good story, definitely not a thriller. I would say young adult suspense…maybe.

I enjoyed the fall/Halloween theming and thought this was a highly atmospheric read. The concept of unburdening yourself of your secrets once a year sounds like a great way to move from one season to the next.

I thought the twist was out of left field, and left me not knowing who the real main characters actually were—the kids? Or their parents? Everyone had secrets, but none of them were particularly bad? There was so much drama and lead up…and the suspense fizzled for me.

My first YA thriller, and I enjoyed it.

Sam Hall and his friends visit the Dark Place to tell all of their deepest secrets and now years later the “Dark Place” is spilling it all. While the group tries to figure out who could be behind this, their secrets are getting in the way.

Loved the short chapters, easy to read and fun to keep up with.

Will definitely be reading more from Vincent Ralph.

Thank you for approving me!

I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are my own opinions.

This is a YA thriller that grabs your attention right away and keeps you asking questions. Sam family could have had their own novel with all the secrets and mystery happening. The dark place almost seems like a side story. It's a very good side story, but a side story nonetheless.

I highly recommend this book, especially for kids, with sort attention spans as there is always something happening to grab their attention. Once you start, you are not going to want to move until you are finished on the last page.

3.5⭐️Pretty good over all. I would definitely suggest to a friend That likes thrillers. I didn’t see the big plot reveal. Thought I had my suspicions about the VERY end.

I love YA books but this one just wasn’t my favorite. It personally felt slow to me. I had to keep taking breaks and coming back to it. There was some twists and turns but this just wanted for me.

Thank you NetGalley, Vincent, and bookouture for the ARC!

Sam Hall and his friends are teenaged high school students living in the UK. With secrets to hide and fears of them becoming known, they look for a safe way to release them. This leads them to the Dark Place; an old shed behind one’s forest based house. There, they individually enter, share their secrets with the dark, and come out feeling better. The release is key.

When a strange account starts messaging and threatening Sam, his girlfriend and their shared friends, they begin to worry about what they once felt safe about. The person behind the account seems to know their secrets, and is apparently willing to make them known.

Add in the fact that Sam was once a bit of a star actor, who appeared in a space themed show. It developed quite a following, and his name is well known as a result.

Such is the premise of Secrets Never Die, a young adult thriller from author Vincent Ralph. A book that we were provided a review copy for.

This is another example of why the young adult genre should not be shat upon, because it’s a good book and one that can appeal to all ages. Although it doesn’t reach amazing heights, it’s a very solid read with good entertainment to offer.

The writing is good, and I didn’t notice any errors, be they spelling, formatting or continuity. This is a well written novel and one that reads well.

In the end, I’m glad that I decided to request Secrets Never Die by Vincent Ralph, although I ended up reading the finished version from the library. It was well worth it. This was my first book by this author, but it hopefully won’t be my last.

This review is based on a copy of the book that we were provided with. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing it. Receiving a free copy did not sway my opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books for the ARC! “Some secrets should have never been buried…” This was a fun read - definitely a YA thriller.

Secrets Never Die by Vincent Ralph
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Five teens leave their annual Halloween Party behind to go into the woods to unload their worst secrets. This year their secrets won’t stay buried.
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What I liked:
-This book was a lot of fun to read. The pages flew by and I was suspicious of loads of people!
-The reveal was not what I expected! I was most suspicious of the wrong character entirely! 😅
-I loved Sam’s little sister. 💜
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I don’t want to say much else and spoil things but I would recommend this for any YA thriller fans for sure.
4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

How nice would it be to get your secrets out somewhere in the woods, far away, and your secrets stay just that. Secrets. No one has to know. Well, we all know that doesn't happen. Whatever secrets you have unless you keep them to yourself and do not speak them or write them down, they will come out.
This is what happens to our characters. Now I will say the secrets being told in this hut is not earth-shattering, but for the teens they are major to them. We all know teens are dramatic.
So when the threats and blackmail start happening, they start wondering who is behind it, and what can they do so their secrets don't get out. I will say I didn't get who was behind it until the end and it all goes to show that what happens in the past doesn't always stay there. I think the teenagers will like this as it has that right amount of mystery, it does have a queer character in the story, but nothing that should turn you away. One of my favorite reads? No, but it was enjoyable.

Thank you Wednesday Books and Netgalley for the eARC of this book.

Tropes: Secrets, Found Family, Past Coming Back to Haunt You, Betrayal

This book follows a group of friends that have a ritual that they do every Halloween. They go to the Dark Place and confess their secrets. What is said in the Dark Place is never repeated and the friends don't share what they say- because some secrets need to be buried. This year Sam, Dom, Elisha, Lauren, and Haran go to the woods, but when Sam goes in to tell their secret they hear screaming... then the smell of rancid blood as something is thrown at the Dark Place.

The next day the group starts getting Instagram DMs from a Sasha Craven and somehow she knows their secrets.

Quote: "There are four people in this photograph, but only three of them are smiling real smiles. The other is staring out of the image with eyes as black as coal and a grin like a knife slash, because they are wearing a mask. The same mask that has been haunting us for weeks."

Thoughts:

It took me about 45% of the book to decide that I enjoyed it. The first part of the story was hard for me to get into and honestly it creeped me out a little bit. I didn't really care about the characters and Sam was very "woe is me". Thankfully the story was very fast paced so it was easy to keep reading... in the hope that it would suck me in. Thankfully it did.

This book creeped me out multiple times, and I was concerned about the safety of the kids in this book. I have lots of questions for the parents and why they didn't take action sooner... like I don't fully understand. If I had a kid and they were being stalked I wouldn't be as relaxed about it. Also the dad in this book- not a fan.

I appreciate that the conflict between Sam and his friends that "stabbed him in the back" somewhat got resolved at the end of the story. I don't know how realistic that is for high school kids but I liked that he didn't block them out forever. Also I liked the resolution between Lauren and her significant other.

I did not see the bad guy plot point until they revealed it. I like that she was introduced earlier in the story, but I never would have guessed her as the person - along with her minions- stalking the kids.

Overall a decent read but not my favorite YA thriller that I have read.

Everyone has secrets. This group of friends has decided that every year on Halloween, they will go off to the Dark Place in the woods and let their secrets free. But what happens when someone hears you free your secrets and then uses them against you?

This book is fast paced and will keep you reading until the very end. I was able to read it in one sitting and enjoyed the twists and turns within the storyline.

3.25/5

Secrets Never Die is my first time reading Vincent Ralph, and judging from the reviews I've seen, I need to go back and read his last two books. This was a fast-paced and very engaging novel, and I love that it kept me guessing. I was suspecting almost everyone in this book EXCEPT the person the bad guy ended up being. The chapters are all very short and I liked that each one was titled to insinuate something about that chapter. The book is told almost entirely from Sam's point of view, which was fine, but I wish the author would have gone into a little more detail with the characters' lives. You don't really get to know much about Sam and Elisha as a couple and are basically just dropped into the story without a ton of background.

Christopher Gebauer is our MC for the audiobook, and I thought he was a very fitting voice for Sam as a character. He sounded younger which was perfect since this is a YA novel, and I enjoyed every moment of listening to him. There are plenty of twists and secrets revealed along the way, and also lots of action! At times I was thinking there might be a paranormal aspect as well, and in some ways, the different elements did feel a bit all over the place. The climax also felt oddly anticlimactic, and I was expecting more though again, I didn't guess who it was or what was actually going on until the reveal. All in all, I think tweens and teens alike will be into this one, and if you are an adult, you just might like it too!

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Loved this book from start to finish! So many twists and turns I didn’t see coming. Easy to read and keeps you on the edge until the last page.

3.5⭐️

For a YA read, this one was a decent story! It was fast paced, had short chapters (MY FAVE) and it did pack a few good twists that I was not prepared for.

I do feel that if the "secrets" had been a bit more "life-threatening" maybe or larger in some way that it would have given this an extra punch.

It's a little harder to give a full review without spoiling anything, but I think some of the story was a bit unrealistic. Parents (especially today imo) would be way more overbearing and involved. It's hard to imagine something so big happening and them not really realizing or paying attention to the potential afterhshock and effects of that.

Overall it was a fun read, I just wish it would have been a bit bigger!

Big thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books for the ARC copy! Out everywhere now!

This YA horror stumbles but creates a creepy mystery.
Every Halloween Sam Hall and his friends tell their secrets in an abandoned hut in the woods. This “Dark Place” is supposed to be where their secrets die. But when Sam and his friends are attacked in the hut, they begin to realize that their secrets are coming back to haunt them. Someone is holding them accountable for their past by terrorizing them. Who is it and why are they torturing them?
The book is not well written. Each chapter is short, which in itself isn’t a problem, but Vincent Ralph presents ideas and plot points brushing only the surface. There were chapters that I didn’t understand why were in the book; they were a waste of space. Also, the events don’t escalate in the proper order during the beginnings of the creepy events. This wouldn’t be so bad if the characters said things had escalated when they had backtracked.
The root of the story is pretty good, harkening back to classic horror stories. Ralph also creates creepy scenarios that fuel the story. The events the kids live through create an urgency to find out what happened and what Sam’s secret is. The story builds up to something life-changing, but Sam’s secret is almost nothing. While it explains his guilt, it doesn’t really change anything in the long run or truly affect the cause of the story.
I enjoyed the last quarter of the book where the heart of the mystery unfolds, but it was sluggish getting to that point.

This book was a bit of a challenge for me. While I loved the short chapters and family elements, I found the central secrets to be a bit low stakes for the amount they matter to the plot. Only one character had a secret I actually considered worth the fight, and I didn’t love the ending. I also would have loved more character development as it mostly felt like these characters all just existed to have the dark place set up. Overall this was a miss for me.

Thank you to Wednesday books and netgalley for my ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC.

There's nothing like a YA thriller to reset my love for reading. This book was twisty and enjoyable. Kept me guessing in all the right ways.

I received a Digital Reader Copy from St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is a Young Adult book. The short chapters made this an easy read for me. The pacing kept me interested in finding out how the story ended.

I do think this novel is geared toward YA. Reading it as an adult, the characters could have been more developed, and the story was drawn out.

I was a big fan of R.L. Stine's Fear Street series back in the day, and Secrets Never Die gave me all the same vibes as those books. It seemingly starts out like a lot of YA thrillers I've read - something creepy happens in the woods, and then the group of friends starts receiving weird messages from someone unknown. However, I felt like Secrets Never Die had a really strong plot, especially as it came to light who the stalker was and what happened in the past. It's a true, secrets never stay hidden kind of story.

While I don't read a lot of YA, I did really enjoy this one and feel like all ages will enjoy it.

Thank you Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the eARC!

This book is about a group of friends who visit an abandoned hut that they call “The Dark Place” to bury their secrets each year. This year, secrets from their past are coming back to haunt them. In particular, their secrets from the night Sam’s career as a child star ended.

This story very much gave me the vibes of a YA version of Scream mixed with Pretty Little Liars.

Thank you to Netgalley, Vincent Ralph, St. Martin’s Press, and Wednesday Books for the digital arc of this book.