Thank you to Netgalley for providing an e-Arc in exchange for an honest review.

I definitely enjoyed reading Don't Tell a Soul and I rated it a 3.5/5! I loved the eeriness and how atmospheric the writing was, it honestly gave me chills and at times was very creepy. It is very reminiscent of Rebecca and Mexican Gothic with the apparently haunted mansion.

The writing was very easy to get into and Bram was an unreliable narrator with us not knowing much about her or why she went to see her uncle in the beginning. I will say that the pacing was a bit slow but I would recommend it to people who are trying to get into thrillers/mystery! It is a good starter book for people who don't usually read thrillers but personally to me I was able to predict the twists.

The cover for this book takes creepy to a whole new level. You top it off with a creepy title and I’m here for it! Those two things, and of the course the blurb, sold me on this book and I knew I needed to read it.

Bram has had a lot happen to her over the years. It hasn’t been rainbow and sunshines and the past always has a way of coming back, even when it’s not your own. I love her name as it reminds me of Bram Stoker. Even though no one believes her when it comes to certain events, she never once caves to the masses and sticks to her truth. She is strong, brave, and will not stop until she finds out what happened to those girls.

When it comes to the other characters, it’s easy to like some more than others but it’s also hard to decipher who is actually being honest which makes the book just that more intense. Besides Bram, Nolan would have to be my second favorite character. He sticks up for her even when no one else would and I just really appreciate that. Although I really second guessed myself when it came to him, ha.

The book has one timeline, but since it is a mystery there are a lot of times where the past is discussed and it weaves it altogether combining into one bigger plot. The author does a great job of planting things into the story that have more meaning than we are led to believe. I loved seeing how it all unfolded. She also creates a perfect setting that is creepy and kept me hooked. It was hard to put it down.

My only complaint, if that’s what I would call it, would be how I feel kind of impartial to the ending. In ways it felt a bit rushed and leaves me with questions but I’m also glad that when it came to the mystery everything was solved.

Overall, this book was very enjoyable and if you love a good, creepy setting then I’d suggest adding this one to your tbr!

CW: Drug abuse, Mental health, Rape/Sexual Assault

4.5

Dark and mysterious, this was a good read. Small, quaint town where everyone knows everyone. A pleathra of young women seem to go mad at the inn. The reveal of the curse came as no surprise to me.

This was a 3.5 for me. Excellent premise, with a creepy mansion in a creepy town where no one is who they seem and the main character has a hidden past. All wonderful elements that make for a good mystery/thriller. It started out really good, but by the middle/end there was just entirely too many side plots going on. There was round about ways to get to the truth and even then, it seemed odd and clunky. I liked the main character and each girls past and how they were able to escape awful men. It was a good read, just some parts gave me pause.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House Children's for an e-ARC of this book. As always, all opinions expressed are my own.
A short description with no spoilers: Don't Tell A Soul follows Bram as she goes to stay with her Uncle in his mansion in a small town called Louth. However, there is something strange about Louth and there is definitely something strange about the mansion. Bram also keeps hearing stories about the Dead Girls and the rumors and mysteries surrounding them. What small-town rumors are true? What is really going on in Louth?
My thoughts: I thought the book was okay and had an interesting plot, but it wasn't for me. I felt the end and the plot twist was predictible and the story was a tiny bit slow. However, I liked how you had to discern what small-town rumors were true and which were just gossip. Even though the book wasn't my favorite, I would still recommend it to fans of YA mysteries.

*Trigger Warning: Attempted Sexual Assault, Drug Abuse, Lacing someone’s drink*

“Don’t trust what anyone tells you. A girl should always go with her gut.”

Nothing says a great read like a gothic story filled with mysterious, a haunted house, dead girls, and a troubled protagonists. Told as a modern day Rebecca retelling, it absolutely hits the mark for me! The story revolves around Bram, banished from Manhattan after an incident that “tarnished” her reputation, and has been moved to live with her uncle in the town of Louth in his mansion. The only catch? The house she’s staying at has a history of girls dying and being haunted. Bram has been haunted her entire life, after the incident in which she witnessed her father and aunt (Jame’s first wife) die, their dead bodies have been etched into her memory. She was the one who found the bodies when she was 12 years old and ever since then has been on a never ending journey between drugs and rehab to try and stop seeing the bodies. However, after getting out of rehab and enrolling into a new school, an incident occurs that has people not believing her side of the story no matter what she says. She finds the mystery of her uncle Jame’s tragedy, in which apparently his step daughter set fire to the mansions and his new wife(second wife) died in the fire. Something seems off about the story and Bram sets out to prove the truth, to prove Lark’s truth and ends up in a whole new dangerous mystery with more dead girls than she bargained for. Strange noises echo across the house at night and Bram keeps seeing a mysterious girl in white roaming and moving the furniture in her room. The town is completely hostile to Bram and her uncle is not who she remembered him being (she adored him as kid) and Bram only has her own wits to help her solve this mystery as she soon finds that her own life is on the line. This story was everything I could ever ask for! Bram was a great protagonists and stuck by her guts even though everything made her think she might be crazy. I do like a protagonists who appears to be an unreliable narrator but doesn’t waver from their stance. The mystery was intriguing and definitely a whirlwind. I would highly recommend this read for anyone looking for an interesting mystery or a gothic read by the fireplace!

*Thank you Netgalley and Random House Children's for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

Read this as an ARC from Netgalley! This one had me on the edge of my seat. Ghosts, murders, and many things that were not as they seemed. A definite winner,

I really enjoyed the characters in this book. At the start of the book it is unclear who can be trusted and what secrets they are keeping. The setting of the small town and potentially cursed mansion works really well for the creepy secretive atmosphere of the story. It also served the theme of powerful wealthy men using their influence and money to get anything they want. The story takes place in the present day but the characters are also dealing with the influence of the home’s history and trying to find out what really happened to the young women who fell victim to the cursed estate. Separated by time these girls all dealt with controlling men who valued their own interests over the young women’s lives.

This book may be upsetting to some readers as it deals with dark and heavy themes, with gas lighting, sexual violence, physical violence, and drug abuse. That said the book does so in a way that is appropriate for young adult readers and is also engaging for older readers. Overall this is a really well written book. I particularly enjoyed the ending and seeing how everything came together. I was forced to put the book down for a bit while I was finishing it and all I could think about was how badly I needed to see how it ended. It was very satisfying once I was able to pick it up again. I definitely recommend this book to fans of gothic horror who are looking for something a little different.

The reason this was not an entirely five star read for me was that at the exact moment I would have classed this as genuinely scary- the story took a turn. And this turn made me angrier than anything else. We want to change the "crazy girl" horror trope, and this story attempted to do that. I would not necessarily say that it succeeded, however.

Horror is always a tricky genre to review as it can easily step into the problematic. I did not appreciate the way drug addiction was used in this book. However, the atmosphere was creepy enough to keep me on my toes and make me believe in ghosts. I also really enjoyed most of the characters in this book and how they learned from the things that happened. That's what makes this a 3.5 star read.

I really wish I was able to enjoy this but unfortunately I just couldn’t.

“Don’t Tell a Soul” brings us to Louthe where Bram is escaping the missteps of her past while also looking for answers surrounding her fathers death and when she’s reunited with her uncle she quickly learns that small towns carry nothing but secrets and ghost stories.

I really wanted to like this book it has everything on the surface that I enjoy but I think it suffered in the overall execution.

Bram is an unlikely lead having struggled with different issues that I don’t wish to spoil but they all allow her to become an unreliable narrator leading you to question is it ghosts or something worse and that I love but here she felt very flat so it was less about her sanity and more about keeping my attention.

I think the set up is fine but I feel like if you look too close you can start poking holes into the plot and though the author tries to explain it away it just keeps digging long after you finish which isn’t what you want following a reveal but maybe I’m just being picky.

The mystery itself is okay I think the author did a nice job of trying to draw parallels between each “Dead Girl” to follow the rule of three like method but it’s very predictable which kind of ruins the fun there.

Not a bad book and definitely one that carries the atmosphere of a cold winter night in the woods but that’s about all I’ll remember.

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

As a Kirsten Miller fan, I was really excited to be approved by Netgalley for this eARC.

The story starts with Bram arriving in Louth, New York after a very long journey from Manhattan. She's come to stay with her uncle at a large manor house he's remodeling. There's a blizzard outside and she doesn't she feels like she's been forgotten. Eventually, she's picked up by a man her uncle hired to pick her up, which puts her on edge even though she's armed herself with a newly bought box cutter and bear repellant. She states vaguely that she's come to Louth in search of answers, but it also is hinted at that something or someone has chased her away from New York and there's something or someone preventing her from returning.

I was hooked from the first chapter. I didn't know which characters to trust, and I didn't know how they were all tied into the mystery. I didn't know what the past and three dead girls had to do with the present. I didn't know (but had suspicions) about what had happened to Bram to make her distrust people so much, especially men. I didn't know why she was in Louth, and what had happened in NYC to force her there. I loved her resourcefulness, drive, and determination. I loved the sleepy, wintery, slightly gothic atmosphere. And all of that kept me reading.

Don't Tell A Soul is one of those YA books that are YA because of the main character's age and less so because of the content: there was some dark, enraging stuff going on. I haven't read many mysteries or thrillers but this one has your typical trigger warnings that I feel are important to note: addiction, suicidal thoughts and attempts, sexual assault.

Don't Tell A Soul is def a win for YA mystery.

this was a really good read, the atmosphere is what really sold me on the book, the characters were great and I really enjoyed going on this journey. The plot is really well done and I really loved the way the author writes.

3.75 ⭐️ out of 5

Bram tries to escape her old life in Manhattan, and the only one left for her to turn to is her Uncle James. James is not the same man she remembers from her childhood. After losing his second wife in a mysterious fire he’s now an unrecognizable wisp of a man. Moving into his creepy old manor might have been a bad idea. Especially since the locals aren’t very welcoming to Bram. “People say the house is cursed. It preys on the weakest, and young women are its favorite victims.”
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I thought this book would be a creepy gothic ghost story, but it turns into so much more. This story unfolds slowly, with the reader only learning that something terrible happened to Bram, forcing her mother to kick her out of NYC to live with her Uncle James in the small town of Louth, in an old manor that has seen its own share of tragedies.
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Each character we meet from there is well written, and the method of only giving hints to the mystery surrounding the manor and what is really going on in Louth kept me glued to the pages. I needed to know more!
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I also love that this isn’t just a ghost story. It’s a story of female empowerment, taking back control, and overcoming hardships. Bram had all the chips stacked against her, but she refused to give up. Even when she thought she was all alone, she had people in her corner rooting for her.

While the twists and turns of the story were slightly predictable, and were wrapped up a bit too neatly, I still found myself enraptured to the very end. My biggest issue with the book was the cover. It doesn’t do the story justice. I hope it’s something that will change before being published. If not, you definitely don’t want to judge this book by its cover or you’ll be missing out.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children’s for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest and voluntary review.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley. I'm leaving my honest review.

A modern Gothic mystery with well developed characters. It was well written and kept me guessing until the end. I particularly enjoyed the underlying theme of female empowerment.

Don't Tell a Soul by Kirsten Miller is a book I requested from NetGalley and the review is voluntary. As I read this book I truly forgot I was reading and not actually experiencing this story! The author presented the world so complete that I felt, heard, and experienced everything that the main character was going through. Terrific job!
Wonderful, well developed characters and plenty of tension, plus unpredictable situations and possible outcomes kept me entranced!
Our gal is sent to live with her uncle after an incident at her home. Life with her mother didn't sound pleasant anyway. Her uncle's manor has a history of death, a curse, and hauntings. What our gal Bram eventually finds is even worse!

Ghosts lurking around the gothic mansion where three women from different eras had died because the place haunts the weakest young women by taking their souls.

And another troubled young girl named Bram, outcast, forced to leave NY because of accusations against her, estranged with her own mother who denies to believe her moves to uncle James’ eerie mansion located in Louth: a tiny town on the Hudson River to live with him temporarily!

But the permanent spiritual night time visitors of the house and local people are hostile to the outsiders don’t let her spend some quality time at her new place peacefully. Caretaker Miriam and her son Sam get worried about Bram who keeps seeing a girl in white dress stepping around the rooms, looking exactly like one of the girls rumored to be died at the mansion nearly 100 years ago.

And her uncle James still suffers from grief to lose his wife at the fire nearly destroyed the mansion. He still thinks his step daughter Lark who is institutionalized at the mental hospital may be the reason of the fire. But Bram thinks otherwise and as she starts to dig further, she realizes there’s something more threatening about this place! If she wants to survive, she’d better run without looking back!

This is smart, riveting, twisty, exciting, unputdownable gothic story! Bram is survivor, fighter, brave girl even though she suffers from so many tragic experiences. Most of the women characters including Lark, Maisie were troubled but strong, clever girls who are determined to survive against their dysfunctional families and the shittiest life hands they were dealt!

I couldn’t stop reading and the conclusion was more satisfying than I can imagine! This book is not only a horrifying, dark, gothic dark mansion story, it’s also about the young women who shouldn’t be afraid of standing for themselves. It’s truly inspiring and earned my five gazillion haunted, up all night, nightmarish, traumatic stars!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s / Delacorte Press for sharing this incredible digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

First off I adore this gorgeous cover. Second it is a great spooky read. It has aspects of being a series that could be an anthology to me. It could certainly go more indepth about certain character aspects. Overall it had that chilling, thriller type story that is a fun nighttime read.

OMG this was amazing!! Rebecca is one of my all time favorite books and this sort of "remake" was next to perfect. I don't buy a lot of (new) books much anymore but I would purchase this in a heartbeat! I had such a fun time reading this and it held my attention the entire way through that I finished it within the day! I enjoyed every page and thought that the plot/story was very unique in its own way, too. Would recommend to anyone!

This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our library wishlist and recommended it to students.

*Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.*

Bram is absolutely ready to disappear from life in Manhattan, where she lives with her Mom (who never wanted kids anyhow) and where she's trying to get past an unfortunate scandal (that totally wasn't her fault). When her Uncle James invites her to stay at his house in upstate New York, she jumps at the chance - except, it's more of a mansion than a house, which was supposed to be turned into an inn, and it's also cursed. Not long before, there was a fire, which took the life of her aunt, and her uncle's step-daughter had a mental break. Decades earlier, a teen wandered into the woods on New Years Eve and froze to death, and long before that, a bride-to-be ran from the house and drowned herself in the Hudson River. It's all about the Dead Girls - and Bram is determined not to be one of them.

Add in a cast of not-overly-welcoming townsfolk, a few neighbors that nobody is really sure about, and her uncle's increasingly erratic behavior, and Bram is in for a wild ride.

Reader Notes: A creepy and satisfying read - no, I didn't figure out the twist - that was perfect for curling up on a chilly October night. Unfortunately, it left a few too many loose ends for me, and the end wrapped things up a bit too neatly, but I enjoyed it.