Every Halloween, Sam and his friends go to an abandoned hut they call the Dark Place to share their secrets. This year the secrets are coming back to haunt them one at a time. They have to figure out who's behind it all before it’s too late.

I didn’t particularly like this one. I thought it was a bit slow and not very exciting. I think the problem is that I can’t do YA thrillers anymore. I wanted more action. The whole story felt a little underwhelming to me. I do think this story will appeal to a younger crowd. It just wasn’t for me.

Perfect read leading into spooky season. Everyone in the group has their secrets but no one knows each others secrets. This book will keep you guessing down to the final secrets and who those secrets belong to.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to read and review.

Started out slow for me, but I kept reading and it got really interesting towards the end and then I was consumed with finding out the whodunnit. Every Halloween, Sam, Dom, Haran, Lauren and Elisha tell their darkest secrets in the Dark Place a spot in the woods. Well someone is taunting the teens and threatening to reveal their secrets unless they do what as told. As each teen thinks their secret is what is bringing on the drama and shame, Sam figures out that each of their parents have a secret from 23 years ago that is bringing down each of the teens. The end is when all of the interesting twists and turns occur way to late.

Secrets Never Die is a YA-Horror/Thriller release from Vincent Ralph. With a cover that screams 90s-Horror to me, I was super excited to pick this one up.

I listened to the audiobook on a solo road trip and it was a pleasant way to pass the time. The audio narration is good, it sounds young-feeling and fits the story well. Admittedly, my attention wavered, but I'm not sure if that was necessarily the story, or my mind being on vacation.

This story follows teenaged, Sam and his close-knit friend group. They have an annual tradition of holding private funerals for their secrets at an abandoned hut in the woods, which they call the Dark Place. Suddenly, those secrets are coming back to haunt them in eerie and unexpected ways.

Sam, once a promising child star, had his career tank after a terrifying fire at his home. This event is heavily tied to the current events, but how?

There's blackmail, dangerous secrets and lots of head-scratching twists and turns. Sam isn't sure who he can trust. Even his friends are starting to feel like potential threats. How far will Sam be willing to go to bury the past and free himself from his own deeply held secrets?

This was a good time. As far as YA Horror-Thrillers go, it does read a little on the younger side, in my opinion. Maybe more in the Tween category. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I am just pointing it out so that you can decide whether or not that would suit your tastes. For me, personally, I enjoy Horror-Thrillers from Childrens, all the way up through Adult, so it doesn't bother me at all.

Content-wise, this is a decent, fast-paced story. It would probably go direct to video if it were a movie, but again, there's nothing wrong with that. I think for me, I just found the narrative a little hard to track. Sam's personal story was compelling, but his friends lacked memorability to me and I had a difficult time distinguishing between them.

These difficulties could perhaps be due to the audio format, but I'm not sure about that. I consume A LOT of stories via audio and that's not a common problem for me. I think, personally, I would have just liked to see a bit more character development to go along with the action.

Also, some of the darker elements felt a bit all over the place; like perhaps too much was going on at one time. That could 100% be personal taste though. Overall, I think this is a solid story. A fun way to pass a weekend and I know a lot of Readers, particularly the Teens this is intended for, will really enjoy this.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Wednesday Books and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with a copies to read and review. I would definitely be interested in picking up more from this author!

Couldn't put this book down! Absolutely love it and a must read! loved the short chapters. For some reason just fly through any book with short chapters. I had an easy time reading this and did not completely expect the ending!

Every Halloween, Sam and his friends sneak away from the big Halloween party at Dom's house and go to the Dark Place for their annual ritual -- going into the cabin in the woods, one by one, and confessing their secret(s). However, this year everything is different, because someone/something interrupts the evening. And then they start receiving strange messages from a Sasha Craven. Someone knows their secrets and is using that information to harass and scare them. Sam, Haran, Elisha, Dom and Lauren don't know each other's secrets, but Lauren's secret comes out first (in part), and eventually all the other secrets will be revealed, which will be both devastating and freeing. The secrets some of them are carrying have profoundly shaped their lives and the lives of those they care about. However, there are even greater and deeper secrets that will be unearthed.

The story has a lot of suspense and surprises. Each friend has a reason to keep their secret hidden, but as the harassment/stalking increases and other family members become involved, the friends diverge more on what to do about the situation, and things break apart further as the secrets are uncovered. The tormentor has been playing a long game, with motives much more intricate and sinister than the teenagers would ever guess and has managed to recruit a number of willing assistants. Some of the oddest or most innocuous seeming comments or events hold vital clues. Thank you Netgalley and the publishing team for giving me this free arc for my honest review.

this was a really weird book for me because it was chilling and suspenseful but also I mostly didn't like anything about it? the only redeeming part of it for me was Molly..

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A great YA thriller with plenty of twists and turns along the way. This had a unique storyline and I was quickly immersed in the world racing through the pages!

I am utterly torn in regards to this book. I liked the reading of it, but feel completely cheated by the outcome. So, do I recommend it because I enjoyed the journey, or not recommend it because the end kind of ruined it? I suppose the only way to make any recommendation at all is to simply state the good and the bad, and let people make up their own minds about it.

The good bit is that the story itself makes sense. There is no failure in that regard. Everything is built up without any real extraneous "evidence" (oh, how I hate the seemingly ever-present "evidence" that actually makes no sense at all). The misleads worked and made enough sense to be viable. Many of the characters were a particular joy, especially Molly.

The bad is a little more complicated, and will require some spoilers, so be forewarned before reading further (skip the next paragraph to avoid spoilers).

The end, the answer to the mystery, while it makes perfect sense, is never hinted at. You, as the reader, have basically no chance to ever see it coming. Also, the whole thing feels like either anti-traveller racism, or an extremely clumsy attempt to bring attention to anti-traveller racism. Given the fact that there is nowhere in the book that actually describes anyone as being a traveller (or any of the more racist terms) and I am getting this feeling from vague charactizations, I would sadly say it seems more likely to be a subconscious form of the former.

I could 100% be seeing something that's not there. I am not an expert on what does and does not count as anti-traveller racism, but I am very leery of promoting anything that might be. I honestly tried to find out more about the author, hoping to get some clue about the intention behind this, but I could find nothing. So, sadly, I do not think I can recommend this book, due to the issues listed above.

Secrets Never Die is out on bookshelves today. Sam and his friends have a tradition of visiting the Dark Place every year on Halloween. They take turns in the Dark Place and reveal their secrets. Secrets they haven't shared with one another or anyone for that matter. This year is about to be different. They are attacked at the Dark Place and then they start to receive texts from an anonymous source.

The source knows their secrets and is using them to blackmail them however there is a lot more than meets the eye. This is told it some fairly short chapters and you will find yourself sucked into it.
My favorite character is Molly. Who is a minor yet important character. Who is yours?

Sam and his friends have been spilling their deepest, darkest secrets to a small hut in the woods every year on Halloween. But one year the sanctity of their space is ruined when they're interrupted and blackmailed with their secrets.

Secrets Never Die was a creepy story that had me on the edge of my seat. The short chapters made it easy to read quickly, and there was enough suspense that I needed to know who was behind the threats. I thought the ending was a little anticlimatic. The main characters are all teenagers who didn't have secrets that it really would've been so bad that it leaked.

Secrets Never Die (ARC)
Vincent Ralph
4.25⭐️

Pub Date: 8/29/2023

Every year, there's a special party. Fun and big. Every year Sam and his friends sneak out and hold a special ritual. They whisper their secrets in the Dark Place, where they know those words will never be heard. But they were. And now someone's out to get them, threatening them in exchange for supposed silence. Sam suddenly can's trust anybody, even friends and family. How far will Sam and the rest go to protect their secrets? And how deep do the lies go?

Yes omg I'm late with this review! For some reason I thought it doesn't come out til late September 😑

It starts off so cliche. Partying teens. But this doesn't bother me at all because immediately in the first chapter, there's mentions of the rituals and secrets already. Then trouble comes in. The stalker left so much messages that were creepy and intense. Suddenly everyone is suspicious... friends and family members. The chapters are short. The author is good at building tensions. It runs on a good pace. Ofcourse, there are the thriller parts which were really good. But there were also chapters that let's the reader breath a little. But since they're all short chapters, the momentum is not lost. I actually like the small breaks in between. The climax of the story, the culprit of who started all these , was so misleading. Never thought that there were other secrets from long ago that would actually bring about this tragedy.

Among other thrillers I've read, this is on the lighter side. No gory details. But nonetheless, enjoyable!

This is my second, maybe third book by this author and it did not disappoint. I was so excited to read this and I'm beyond glad that I did.

This isn’t my favorite genre, but I feel like I’m growing to appreciate it more through books like YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DIE TONIGHT and ONE OF US IS NEXT.

I liked that SECRETS NEVER DIE starts with a close-knit friend group in which everyone hides a secret. I definitely didn’t predict the direction that some of those secrets took the story. There were a few things that I did successfully predict. They were pretty minor, though, so mostly, that made it satisfying that I was right.

One particular plot bend shifted the focus of the story away from the main characters. I found some of the things that happened at that juncture to be a little less engaging. By that point, though, the stakes of the story were so high, and it seemed like whoever had it out for Sam and his friends was closing in on them.

In one scene, Sam and his girlfriend need to make up after a fight. She sits at her desk reading her favorite book, THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER. Sam wants to talk to her, but he says she makes him wait until she gets to the end of the chapter she’s reading. I thought that was funny because PERKS only has four chapters in the whole book, and they’re like 40-60 pages. That’s a LONG wait unless she happened to be near the end of one already.

On the whole, I think the book does a great job in the way the story builds tension. I liked the characters, and I kept finding reasons to sneak another chapter in so I could keep reading.

I think readers who enjoy suspense/thriller stories will want to check this one out.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions my own.

When you're alone in the dark, some things won't stay hidden...

I absolutely loved this YA mystery/thriller! It’s got all my crucial elements…a high creepiness factor, a remote woods location, and everyone keeping secrets! Vincent Ralph had me guessing all the way through. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, he threw me a curveball, and I was sent off down another path. Secrets Never Die is not only perfect spooky season reading, but it's perfect anytime reading! Thanks for the opportunity to review!

This book was an interesting read, while I wouldn't have ever predicted the ending, the characters felt a little lackluster. All in all, this was a great read, and I will recommend this to all my friends!

I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this book!
While the book is touted for fans of Courtney Summers (who I adore) so I jumped at the chance to request it. It was hard to go into this book with no expectations because I wound up enjoying it a lot more then I would have if I went in with high expectations.
First, I was so grateful for the fast chapters. It kept the book moving. I don't understand why I like shorter chapters, maybe because I feel like I'm reading it faster.

I truly loved the twist, and a majority of the characters. My only issue with the book was Sam and Elisha's relationship. I didn't buy for a minute that they were a couple. That whole relationship story line was really not needed in the book.

Thank you so much to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the arc!

If you’re looking for the perfect creepy book go get you in the mood for spooky season… THIS IS IT!

This book honestly exceeded my expectations. The writing was haunting in the best way possible, the thrills were thrilling, and the chill factor was top tier👌🏼.

This was a pretty typical YA horror story. It was action packed and fast paced. The twists were a little convoluted but I did like the ultimate reveal. I liked that we didn't get a blow by blow of the school day and that there wasn't a ton of teen lingo to make the chatting bog down with slang. I also loved that it had a band of friends and their deep, dark secrets. Even though I thought some of the secrets were a bit silly to really be all that worried about, I loved that this was a layered story and you do get the laid out confession at the end, along with the reveal. It's a good little horror story, an easy & quick read.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

This book started strong and continued to grow in suspense. The characters were well developed. This wasn’t exactly in my normal realm of reads but it was good.