Two Sides to Every Murder is such a fun and fast read. I loved Danielle Valentine’s other book, How to Survive Your Murder, so I knew this one had to be on my TBR. Two Sides to Every Murder is more grounded in reality and perfect for fans of teenage slasher flicks.

This book follows teenagers Olivia and Reagan as they head to Camp Lost Lake. Camp Lost Lake is finally reopening after being closed for seventeen years due to some grisly murders that occurred there. Both girls have connections to the camp, and they’ve both come looking for some answers.

Camp Lost Lake holds many secrets and someone doesn’t want those secrets to come to light. The Witch of Lost Lake returns and soon bodies start piling up. Olivia and Reagan will have to learn to trust one another if they hope to to keep their friends and themselves alive.

I loved the camp setting for this one. The woods cans be a scary place and the author uses that perfectly to create a sense of unease. I really enjoyed unraveling the mystery in this one. Two Sides to Every Murder was written in a way that made you want to keep turning those pages long into the night. I can’t wait to see what the author comes up with next.

Sixteen years ago Miranda D’Angeli gave birth to Olivia in a secluded lighthouse at her local summer camp. This night soon began the town's local legend of the Witch of Lost Lake. On this fateful night Lori Knight wanted revenge and brutally murdered three people, one of them was her cheating husband, Jacob all while wearing a witches mask. Miranda barely escaped that night with her life and the life of her then newborn baby and no one has seen Lori since.
When Olivia takes a paternity test for a school assignment she discovers that she is not biologically her father’s daughter. Olivia decides to find out what truly happened the night she was born and who her real father is, but to do so she must return to Camp Lost Lake.
Reagan is also in search of answers….answers to prove once and for all her mother, Lori, is innocent. Reagan has recently discovered a podcast recounting the details from the night that her mother killed three people. But she knows something just doesn't add up: she must head to Camp Lost Lake to find the evidence she needs to clear her mother’s name. But all Reagan uncovers is more cryptic clues, which has brought the Witch of Lost Lake out of hiding. And this time the Witch is out for more blood.
Overall rating 4/5
Friday the 13th with an unpredictable ending. This book gives all the summer camp murder mayhem vibes and was so horrifically delicious. I loved Valentine’s tantalizing impression that everyone just might make it out of Camp Lost Lake alive. Her take on the classic cat and mouse game was intriguing and kept me hooked till the very end. I loved the multiple revelations which convoluted the story in an intriguing way.

*Thank you to Danielle Valentine, PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group | G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, and Netgalley for the ARC copy. I am freely leaving my honest review.

Another fast-paced thriller from Danielle Valentine that I'm sure the teens in my library will devour. She does a decent job of keeping the reader on their toes, with plenty of twists and turns that have you guessing who the real murderer up until the end. It also has her signature cliff-hanger ending that will keep you wondering what happens next.
I loved the first 80% of the book, but by the end there were a few too many loose threads to be neatly tied up, and some narrative points felt hastily resolved. That being said, I think your average teenager won't mind.

I was not expecting this book to go the way it went. I enjoyed going back in time with Allie to uncover the truth of that night in the corn maze! Allie learns new secrets about everyone as she goes back to figure out who murdered her sister. She wasn’t expecting everyone she thought she could trust to have a secret, and some secrets were why they ended up in this disaster.

While reading this book, I felt like I was going through the same emotions as Allie. I was shocked when each person connected to that night in the corn maze had a secret of their own. Some secrets were so shocking and almost unbelievable. I thought the character development in this book was well done. You got to know each person, and you slowly learned more as Allie put the pieces together. In some parts of the book, I did feel like it was dragged out and could have been shorter, but after finishing the book, it made sense why they were detailed and went over the most. In the end, it played out and brought you the full picture.

This book was a fun read, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys mystery thrillers and likes going on a journey as they read to figure out what is happening. Thank you, NetGalley, for allowing me to read this book and give my honest opinion. Thank you, Danielle Valentine, for writing a well-detailed book! I enjoyed your writing, character development, and the plot of the story! I can't wait to read more of your books!

What a fun thriller ride. I really enjoyed this and recommend if you're a fan of Good Girls Guide to Murder, One of Us is Lying, The Inheritance Games, and others in that vein.

Thank you to NetGalley for this eARC copy gifted in exchange for my honest review.

Unraveling Secrets
Two Sides to Every Murder by Danielle Valentine was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024. Life, however, got in the way, preventing me from finishing it in one sitting. Unlike Delicate Conditions, which I devoured all at once, this book took a bit longer. Despite that, it was a campy and fun read, worth every minute. I only wish it had been longer so I could spend more time with the characters.

The story begins with Olivia, who was born in the parking lot of Camp Lost Lake. After a school project reveals that her dad isn’t her biological father, she decides to work at the camp to uncover more about her true identity. Alongside her, her older sister Andie joins the search, leading to unexpected revelations about their family and themselves.

Meanwhile, Reagan, who has been on the run with her mother Lori for years, returns to Camp Lost Lake to clear her mother's name. Lori was believed to have committed the camp murders before disappearing.

As Olivia investigates openly, Reagan is forced to dig for answers in the shadows. The camp's eerie atmosphere is heightened by a new string of murders, putting the girls and their friends in a fight for survival. They uncover secrets about their pasts, facing the challenge of moving on from the dark history that threatens to upend their lives.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the girls and their friends piece together the mystery. However, I had a significant issue with the introduction of potential romantic relationships while the characters were literally running for their lives. It didn’t feel realistic. Despite this, the writing was clear and concise, making for an engaging read. The vivid descriptions made me feel as if I were sneaking around the woods myself, hearing footsteps and the whoosh of arrows hitting nearby targets.

Danielle Valentine remains an instant-buy author for me. While I liked Two Sides to Every Murder, I can only give it three stars. I loved Delicate Conditions and already own How to Survive Your Murder, which I plan to read by the end of 2024. I'm eagerly waiting to see what she comes up with next.

♡ Summer Camp
♡ Sapphic Romance
♡ Plot Twist Family Edition

This was more of a quick pace than I was expecting but it still gave a great mystery/thriller vibe. The plot twists along the way were foreshadowed nicely.

It was a fun read filled with plot twists, drama, and even a dash of romance mixed in there as well. Uncovering more and more of what really happened the night of the Lost Lake murders and both Olivia and Reagan learning a few new things about their family along the way.

It’s been 16 years since the gruesome murders at Camp Lost Lake. Most people think they know the truth about what happened that night, others blame The Witch, an old urban legend that haunts the woods at camp. Now, the camp is reopened, and the bodies soon start piling up. Is the killer back? Or worse, is it The Witch?

A summer camp, a creepy urban legend, a 16-year-old mystery. The entire setup for this book was right up my alley, and it did not disappoint. It’s like Friday the 13th meets Blair Witch Project, with a hint of Wrong Turn and a dash of Parent Trap.
We waste no time setting up the mystery and getting the action going at the summer camp, which for books like these where I want a fun, easy read, it is appreciated. We spend most of the story at Camp Lost Lake, which is a perfect, isolated backdrop for the unfolding events. The author does a great job of pacing the mystery, dropping us bits and pieces of what happened the night of the murders like a trail of breadcrumbs, making you want to turn the page.
For the most part, the characters are enjoyable enough to follow, especially the two main leads, Olivia and Regan. We understand their motivations for being there and we want to follow them along in their pursuit of answers. The side characters are nothing special, but they all play the roles they need to. It is a YA novel, so some of the dialogue is cringy, but for the most part, it is not too distracting and everyone is relatively likable. I will say, and this is just something I think I’ll have to get used to in modern media, but if a character says they “make cooking tutorial videos on TikTok” and with a straight face say they “want to be a food influencer” when they grow up, that character is going to lose some likability points in my book even if they are otherwise pretty cool.
The mystery itself ends up being a little predictable, and connecting all the dots at times felt a little confusing and convoluted. I felt like I needed a Pretty Little Liars-esq conspiracy board with a red string to follow along. But I appreciated the author leaning into the insanity and not taking herself too seriously.
Overall I give this book 4/5 stars. This felt like a love letter to the teenage slasher genre. You could tell the author had fun writing it, and I had a ton of fun reading it.

Thank you to NetGalley, PENGUIN GROUP, and Danielle Valentine for an arc in exchange for an honest review!
Unfortunately I didn’t like this book. I don’t really know why but the whole book just fell super flat to me and it was definitely for younger readers (I know it is YA, I don’t mind reading YA, but this was distinctively for young readers).

Well, this book definitely hit the mark (with an arrow of course!) for campy horror. It takes place mostly at the closed down camp and has all the tropes for that kind of horror. You have groups of teenagers splitting up to try and contact someone, there is no signal for phones (except at the top of a very sketch lighthouse), and a person dressed up as the local legend Witch of Lost Lake hunting them all down with masterful precision and a very powerful bow and arrows. You also have Reagan and Olivia trying to find out the truth of what had happened 16 years ago because someone did a good job of messing with the evidence and pinning the blame on the wrong person (maybe). So it was a fast and easy read and though the romantic bits that started popping up were a bit annoying. Running for your life from a witch but also have a meetcute? Not needed. But still mostly fun to read and I must admit that the murderer or maybe more than one get what they deserve. A bit of a shocking ending but fitting.

Not a deep or complicated book but a good summer read, though you may want to make sure you have a strong signal on your cell if you are going to camp this year.

This story follows Olivia and Reagan, two teen girls that had their lives changed following the famous murder case at Camp Lost Lake - Olivia being born that night and Reagan’s mother being accused of the murder. Now that the camp is reopening, Olivia and Reagan are determined to find out what really happened that night.

I don’t know what it is about camps with sinister pasts, killers on the loose, and teens who make questionable decisions, but I am always drawn to these stories even if they are campy.

Valentine does a fantastic job of nailing the spine tingling atmosphere at Camp Lost Lake. While there some parts of the storyline are predictable, there were a few twists and turns that had me floored.

Oh, and that ending?! Whew. I wasn’t ready.

3.75 stars

Man, this was definitely a ride.
In all honesty, I did not think I’d rate this book so high. While I was reading it, I thought I mostly had figured out what had actually happened, so my rating kept dropping, but boy was I WRONG. I was so convinced I knew who it was, but in classic thriller fashion, the book proved that I shouldn’t make judgements so easily, because without the full story, there’s no way I would’ve guessed the true events of that day at all, and what brought them all to that point. As far as the actual mystery portion of the book, I enjoyed it and thought it was well done.
But of course, there were some things that stopped me from rating this 5 stars.
The characters were good enough, I did care about them to a certain degree but I didn’t form any attachments to most of them, but it’s okay because that’s to be expected, what with the timeframe of this book. Everything happened pretty fast, so I don’t really have a problem with the fact that I didn’t have much as much time as I’d like with the characters themselves. But what I DID have a problem with was the romance.
I’m sorry but… ew? Usually, I love a good romance side plot, a ship for me to root for, but this time, I wasn’t really feeling it. It’s very out of character for me to say something like this because I usually feel like a story is missing that little something when I read something without even a hint of romance, because I’m so used to reading books with it, and I love it so much, but honestly? This book could’ve gone without. I couldn’t find it in myself to root for either of the ships. I just wasn’t feeling any chemistry. I can’t even say it was cute, because every time I had to read about it, I kind of wanted to vomit. I knocked off a whole star off my rating because of it. I really just didn’t like it.
So, that brings my rating down to 4 stars, so let me explain why I took off another .25 star from my rating.
Well, the ending. The book didn’t end as satisfyingly as I hoped it would. It was certainly interesting twist, but I would’ve preferred a neater ending that didn’t leave me with any questions about what happens next.
So, overall, this was a good, quick, interesting read. If that’s what you’re looking for, this is the book for you.

This was a fun, spooky summer campy book. I got hooked immediately and while it is more young adult.i did enjoy it a lot.

Thank you to @penguinteen for the gifted copy of this book!

★★★★

🏹 Review:
I read this in a matter of days. I was hooked from the very beginning. I had so many theories while reading because I trusted no one. It was difficult to trust even our main characters. I read this in two sittings and I was enthralled with the setting and the story so much. I wanted to figure out the twists so much. Some of my theories were correct in the end but that didn’t take away from the story. I loved the little snippet subplot of romance and found family. If you’re into slasher films or need a good thriller I highly recommend this one, it will have you on the edge of your seat until the very last page!

3.5 stars!

Did I guess all of the plot twists in this book? Yes. Did I know who the culprit was within 50 pages? Also yes. But was this a good, summery, fun time? Also yes!

I love myself a YA thriller and I thought this was a really fun read! I felt like the writing was solid, the summer vibes were perfect for this June read, and it read really fast - I finished the whole book in one sitting and about 2.5 hours.

I would definitely read more from Danielle Valentine and I plan on going back and reading her backlist whenever I need a palette cleanser!

Thank you to Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The nitty-gritty: Danielle Valentine’s latest will most likely be a hit with YA lovers, but for me it lacked depth and interesting characters. I’d call this one “slasher light,” so if you’re looking for something edgier, you might be disappointed as well.

I never would have picked up this book if it hadn’t been for the author, and now I sort of wish I hadn’t. Two Sides to Every Murder is a very confusing YA thriller that didn’t live up to Danielle Valentine’s Delicate Condition at all. There were some elements I enjoyed, but for the most part I can only recommend this to YA fans. I freely admit I’m usually leery of YA these days, so this review is coming from someone who doesn’t read a lot of it.

The story revolves around an old summer camp called Camp Lost Lake. Sixteen years ago, a series of shocking murders shut the camp down. A woman wearing a witch mask was caught on video tape killing two people with a bow and arrow, and a third person went missing and was never found. There was enough evidence to pin the murders on Lori Knight, but before she could be arrested, Lori took off and has been a fugitive ever since. Lori’s sixteen year old daughter Reagan doesn’t believe her mother could ever kill anyone, so she’s decided to go back to the camp and look for clues that might prove her innocence.

We also meet a girl named Olivia, who has just made the startling discovery that the man she thinks is her father, isn’t. Olivia knows she was born sixteen years ago at Camp Lost Lake, after the stress of the murders caused her mother to go into labor. Olivia knows all about the tales of the Witch of Lost Lake, and she knows a man named Jacob Knight was the witch’s first victim. Olivia thinks he may have been her real father, and she’s determined to go to the camp and find some kind of proof.

We also get flashbacks to June 13 2008, the night the murders took place, when a camper named Gia, a self-proclaimed gossip, saw the actual murders and caught them on tape. Unfortunately, Gia was also a victim of the Witch of Lost Lake, but she did manage to hide her camera before she was killed. The missing camera is the key to finding out the truth and the reason Olivia and Reagan have returned to the scene of the crime.

But the witch isn’t finished with her grim work. Someone is hunting the group of adults and teens who have arrived at Camp Lost Lake for the grand reopening, and Olivia and Reagan are in the killer’s crosshairs.

There are a ton of characters in Two Sides to Every Murder, and I had a tough time keeping them straight. Not only are there characters in both the past and present timelines to deal with, but some of them show up in both timelines. The story is mostly narrated in first person by Olivia and Reagan, with the chapters in the past written in third person. And Olivia’s and Reagan’s voices sounded exactly the same, unfortunately, so it was tough to keep their different stories straight. In the midst of so many characters, the author also throws in a bunch of complicated familial relationships. We know that Olivia suspects she has a different father, but there are many other questionable connections that are slowly revealed as the story progresses. Eventually all of this makes sense, especially when the killer is finally revealed, but there’s a lot of confusion before we get to that point.

But it’s not all bad. My favorite parts of the story happen in the present, as Olivia, Reagan and their friends are trying to stay one step ahead of the killer, who is literally hunting them with a bow and arrow. As far as thrillers go, Valentine has a firm grasp on what makes an exciting scene, and I found these chapters thrilling and tense. And if you’re the kind of reader who doesn’t like a lot of blood and gore, you might enjoy this a lot. I mean, how much damage can a bow and arrow really do? It’s all pretty mild as far as violence goes, so obviously the author was catering to a younger audience.

The reveal at the end, though, felt a little anticlimactic to me, and honestly, the killer’s motivation to kill didn’t really make sense. The author includes a final chapter with a strange twist that had me shaking my head, so yeah, I wasn’t a fan of the ending.

I think from now on I’ll stick to the author’s adult books and chock this one up to “tried it but it didn’t work for me.”

With thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

Disclaimer: My entire review is based on an advance reader copy of this book. I am sure many of the aspects I will refer to have been changed before the final publication.

I really loved How to Solve Your Own Murder and found it to be an underrated gem, so I expected Danielle Valentine’s latest to be the same. However, I was disappointed in many ways.

Two Sides to Every Murder has some seriously brilliant plot points, but they are overshadowed by lots of confusion. I could not keep most of the characters straight for about 90% of the book. Part of this is on purpose, to disguise relationships, but I would not be able to clearly explain who everyone is, and this held me back greatly from enjoying the story.

The ARC that I read is filled with typographical errors. I suppose a few are to be expected, but this was the roughest shape I’ve ever read. Aside from that, I am unclear if the author was still working on flow. There were a few random police files interspersed throughout, with no context given for how or even if the characters read them. They were helpful for the reader, but I never knew how they fit into the story.

Aside from its flaws, the shining aspect of Two Sides to Every Murder is its storyline. Near the end (not the very end) was one particularly good twist.

Although I don’t plan to read the final version of this book, I am sure it is much better than the one I read, and I would recommend it to fellow readers as an enjoyable summer mystery.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher, for this ARC.

Absolutely love this author!!!!

This book had me on the edge of my seat and was just awesome!!

The only thing I didn't like was the end was too much of a cliffhanger but I will still read anything this without writes!!!
Loved this book!!!

Thanks NetGalley for letting me read and review

This book is definitely perfect for slasher movie lovers, especially when it takes place a mostly abandoned campground! There were plenty of twists and an intricately webbed plot line. However this one did not pull me in the way
"How To Survive Your Murder Did". I had a harder time keeping up with what character was who, as all of their relationships to one another were complicated! However, it was still a really good and fast read for me and would definitely recommend!

The PERFECT summertime thriller. I had a blast reading it.
The twists were so wild! Amazing!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review