This was such a nice, fast read for me! I flew through this one trying to figure it out. It's such a demonstration of how friendships become distant and complex and complicated as you get older, the joys of girlhood simply left behind.

Burn It All is a story about friendship, rage, mental health, treason, prejudice, violence against women, arson and deceit. Thea and Marley are best friends since childhood, there's also Austen, Thea's step brother. The three are inseparable although each one of them is surrounding themselves with walls that will result in heartbreak and crime. A very good plot, sometimes slow going, but nevertheless deeply moving and entertaining.I especially enjoyed that the story is told using two different views which imply, at times, different consequences or culprits.
I thank Ms. Auffarth, her publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC.

Told in dual perspectives and timelines, psychological thriller Burn it All is set in small-town Georgia and centres on the friendship of Marley Henderson and Thea Wright. In the current day, Marley has just stuffed up her relationship and her career and basically become a social outcast. Lashing out, she cut off her best friend Thea. What’s much, much worse, is that in an escalation of an arson spree in their town, Thea was fatally burned. It looks like suicide to the police. But Marley and her ex-fiancé aren’t convinced. As they dig for the truth, Thea reveals the lead-up to her death, and what actually happened might not be what you expect.
At first, I thought the voices of Marley and Thea were too similar. But it turns out, that simply puts a mirror to the darkness and background they share. I highly recommend dark suspense or psychological thriller Burn it All and look forward to more by the author. 4.5 stars.

This book has me unbelievably conflicted! When that happens, I slip into a pro/con mindset for the review to decipher what I feel about it. In this case, that tactic still didn’t work.

The plot of this story was decent - we have Thea and Marley, BFFs for ages, until a recent falling out. As the book starts, we have Thea dead in a fire, and the police are thinking it’s suicide, perhaps from guilt…

There is an arsonist in their small town, and many houses have been burned to the ground. Thankfully, they were all abandoned, but this time, there was a person in it, and the police are definitely keen to find out why. Marley teams up with her ex-fiancé/Thea’s stepbrother to make sure Thea’s name is cleared. They just know there’s no way Thea was burning down houses, or that she’d kill herself. So the investigation begins…

To start, the pros:

-Marley and Thea had a long and complicated friendship, and the dynamic between the two was compelling.
-The ending of this book was fantastic, and I didn’t see any of it coming. I think everything was wrapped up quite nicely.

Then, the cons:

-This got confusing in parts with the alternate POVs mixed with alternate timelines, and usually that’s something that doesn’t bother me.
-In some parts, this got really slow. At minimum, 50 pages could have been cut from this book and it wouldn’t be much different.

This one is a wash for me - the ending was the most redeeming part and it felt like there was too much to unravel before getting there. The story was decent, but I’m not sure the execution was there. Three stars.

(Thank you to Crooked Lane Books, Maggie Auffarth and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review. This book is slated to be released on June 4, 2024.)

Ultimately this book just did not work for me. I'm glad that many others are enjoying it and hope that it finds its audience upon release, but for me it was a DNF. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read it.

Fire destroyed everything. A life, a friendship, a relationship. Who started the fire and why? Delve into the mind of the dead girl and her best friend trying to solve the mystery of her death. The dual timelines keep the fast-paced thriller spinning toward its shocking conclusion. A beautiful debut by new author Maggie Auffarth. I will be recommending to thriller and mystery lovers everywhere!

I enjoyed the suspense of this one and the dual POVs and timelines of "then" and "now" as the mystery unfolds. Fans of thrillers that explore friendships and unlikable characters will enjoy that aspect!

As soon as I saw the blurb , I knew I had to read it. Told by multiple POV's . This is a book about toxic friendships. I love being surprised in a book and I certainly was in this book.

Unfortunately, this book didn't work for me.
I got through halfway this book before deciding to DNF it.
I realised I didn't care about the characters (I had a very hard time trying to connect or relate to them) and, consequently, I didn't care for the mystery around the death of one of the characters.
I don't have anything essentialy bad to say about this book. It just isn't for me.
I'm sure it'll please other readers.
Thanks, anyway, to NetGalley and to the publisher for providing me with a free ARC.

I can’t believe this is a debut! I loved the alternating timelines and POV, and Marley is a beautifully-written protagonist. This is a book best to go into blind, and trust that if you’re a suspense reader, you’re going to absolutely love it. I’ll happily recommend on release day, and Maggie Auffarth is going to be a new autobuy author for me. Thanks for the opportunity to read!

Marley, Austin and Thea had always been a trio… but when Marley makes a stupid mistake one drunken night, she loses her fiance and her best friend at the same time.

Now, after a year of trying to dodge horrible rumors all alone and being a town pariah, Marley is barely holding it together. An arsonist has been setting fires all summer and in the latest burned building, Thea’s dead body is discovered. Marley is reeling. She never got to reconcile with the girl who was like a sister to her.

It brings Marley and Austin together again when they search for answers, but it takes them deeper into what was really going on with Thea, bringing many more questions before any answers are found.

This was full of twists and the darkness of intrusive thought. I had so much fun. I was able to predict some things, but was floored by others. It was a great time.

This was a fun, twisty thriller. It’s about two lifelong friends, and one of them is dead after a series of arsons have plagued their small town. We have Marley’s POV in present time while Thea’s is set in the past. I didn’t really know where the story was going, and I enjoyed how the author wrapped everything up.

Thanks as always to NetGalley for the ARC.

This propulsive debut psychological thriller set in small-town Georgia explores rage, redemption, and the many layers of toxic friendship, perfect for fans of Andrea Bartz and Rachel Hawkins.

A solid, interesting mystery. I enjoyed it.

This was a great overall concept of a psychological thriller, the concept worked with the genre that I wanted based on the description. The characters felt like they were meant for the story and I was glad I was able to get to know them through this story. Maggie Auffarth has a great writing style that I enjoyed reading a lot.

Hi,

Fair warning

I’m in one of my “moods”

I yell, shout, and fight the shower curtain.

The floor is just a little too cold for my liking and I have a bone to pick with Mother Nature for throwing a wrench in my plans with this flood!!!!

Yes, that kind of mood.

How do I fix it, you ask?

I go sniff my books.

Just kidding, I read..

I picked up one of my favorite books, poured a cup of coffee and took my bra off for the day.

It’s called an adult time out and it’s almost as nice as an adult spankin’.

Burn It All

Seriously? This is a debut? Someone must be punking me.

Maggie Auffarth, has entered the book circuit and if I have anything to say about it, she’ll be here to stay.

This book is down right thrilling and will have you anxiously awaiting what comes next. I was immediately consumed and devoured this book in one sitting.

Check out this teaser :

This propulsive debut psychological thriller set in small-town Georgia explores rage, redemption, and the many layers of toxic friendship, perfect for fans of Andrea Bartz and Rachel Hawkins.

Marley Henderson is having the worst year of her life. First, a drunken mistake costs her everything, including her engagement and her closest friend, Thea. Then, a series of cruel rumors make her an outcast in the small, Georgia community she calls home. Finally, a string of vicious arsons rip through town, leaving unchecked destruction—and Thea’s body—in their wake.

To the police, the case is cut-and-dry. Thea Wright was an unstable woman with a troubled history, and, with no evidence to suggest otherwise, it seems clear that she was responsible—not only for her own death but for dozens of arsons in the months preceding it. To Marley, though, the truth is less obvious.

Reeling from the loss, Marley teams up with her ex-fiancé to uncover the truth, but the deeper she digs into the night of Thea’s death, the murkier the truth becomes, not just about the fires that have been raging through town all summer, but about the woman she thought she knew. To get to the truth, Marley will have to face Thea’s lies, as well as the darkness she thought she put behind her long ago.

Told in alternating POVs and dual timelines, Burn It All will have suspense fans flying through each twist and turn to reach the stunning conclusion.

Burn It All is a hometown mystery with dual POV’s and a then/now timeline. Although you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, I was immediately drawn in by the outward appearance, title & synopsis. I use reading as an escape from reality, but the heavy, depressing tone of this book took some of the enjoyment out of the reading experience. The twists were relatively predictable, and the unlikeable characters made this book hard to get into. Overall, interesting storyline that didn’t quite live up to its potential.

3 ⭐️ Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the opportunity to read this digital ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I love a good hometown mystery, but this one left me feeling less suspense and more sadness. The dual timelines really didn't work for me here. While the present-day one might have held my attention, the jump back in time really lost me. And both felt so heavy, that I was focused more on that than on trying to solve the mystery.

This book is about a young woman named Marley and her path to determine what happened to her former best friend, Thea, after her body was found in a home suspected of being the latest of many arsons around town. Thea’s stepbrother-also Marleys ex fiancé Austen-team up together to take on the case hoping to find out what actually happened because they don’t believe it was Thea’s accidental arson attempt.

As Marley and Austen dig deeper into the mystery, they uncover a few of Thea’s hidden secrets and a whole new world of suspects.

The book switches back and forth between Marleys perspective, and Thea’s perspective-as well as through the past and present version of events. As the story unravels-you learn everyone has deep dark secrets and nothing is quite as it seems.

This is my first book by this author and I’m glad I came across it. It keeps you on your toes throughout and I would definitely recommend it to others.

Thea Wright and Marley Henderson have been best friends since childhood. Austen, Thea’s step-brother made up the third member of their trio and eventually he and Marley got engaged, however they recently broke off the engagement and now Marley and Thea aren’t speaking.

When the novel opens Riverside has a serial arsonist burning down abandoned houses. Marley has cheated on Austen ending their relationship. Then the arsonist claims a life…Thea’s. Thea is then accused of the arson and Austen and Marley try to clear her name.

Love, love, oh, sweet, love. Most readers will see the “twist” coming a mile away, but that doesn’t make this a bad book, just a fairly predictable one.

A thrilling wild ride through toxic friendships and the marks they leave on our lives and the decisions we make. Couldn’t put it down.