Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin's Press for this eARC. I really enjoyed this thriller, which stars another grizzled lady detective. This time, we follow Annie Gore as she attempts to solve a cold case that suddenly becomes hot again once she starts poking around a quiet Appalachian town. I found myself repeatedly wanting to go back to this narrative, even though the folkloric elements weren't my favorite. If I could sum up this text in one word, it would be atmospheric. This is a great one to read with apple cider in the dark. Still, the ending was a bit of a let-down for me.

This small town mystery set against the backdrop of the Appalachian Mountains had me hooked from the first page with this debut from Archer Sullivan. PI Annie Gore takes on the 10-year-old case of two missing little girls in the small town of Blue Ridge. Atmospheric with flawed yet engaging characters, this fast-paced read twists Appalachia lore and small town suspense. The twist at the end fell a bit flat for me, hence the four-star rating vs. five. Nonetheless, still a fantastic read.

Thank you St. Martin's Press, NetGalley and Minotaur Books for sending me this ARC in exchange for my honest review. Available August 12, 2025.

The Witch’s Orchard is a twisty story set in the heart of Appalachia and tells of Annie, a veteran who loves her car, Honey, and after leaving the military becomes a PI- using her skill to do what police can’t.

When Annie shows up, three girls have gone missing- one returned shortly after, and now they’ve been gone for 10 years. Annie begins looking and as she dredges up a decade long investigation, things get muddy, and one of the missing girls turns up dead.

The story is beautifully written, and over and over you see the different re-telling of the “Witch of Quartz Creek.” As the narrator changes, so does the story, and you can see how experiences, trauma, wealth, and life in general change the point of view, the villain, the desperation, and outcome, showing that each character relates to the story in their own way. This was one of my favorite details throughout, and left me wondering how I would tell it if it had been passed down to me.

The characters have depth, the story is intriguing, and I enjoyed the way it played out. I was able to guess what happened pretty early on, but it was satisfying and well written. The book ended well, exactly as you would have wanted it to. Overall, 4.5 stars. Great read

This was an ARC read from NetGalley and the author. Thank you!!

Wow! I loved this book so dang much! It was so good and honestly, I can see this playing out as a Netflix series! At no time during this read did I feel like anything was a stretch. It kept me guessing and when I thought for sure who the bad guy was, I was so, so wrong!

Three little girls get kidnapped weeks apart from one another. One little girl came home. 10 years later, the brother of one of those girls saved up money to hire and PI to look into his sisters disappearance. He was not prepared for what was going to unravel.

SO SO good! Publication is August 2025 so put this on your watch list! You won't regret it!!!

Review of Uncorrected Digital Galley

Private investigator Annie Gore has pawned her watch [again] to pay her bills. So she agrees to meet a prospective client, Max Andrews. But she’s dismayed to discover that he wants her to look into the disappearance of his sister, Molly, some ten years earlier.

Annie tries to dissuade Max, but he is determined; Annie agrees to come to Quartz Creek, North Carolina for a week and see what she can learn about the missing girl. After so much time has passed, she doubts she will find anything of any importance.

But there are secrets in Quartz Creek . . . townspeople who do not to be reminded of the past, even if it means finding the truth about what happened to the girls who were taken.

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Believable characters, a strong sense of place, and a captivating mystery all work together to pull readers into the telling of the tale from the outset. Filled with tension, plot twists and turns, and long-held secrets, the unfolding narrative keeps readers guessing. The folklore surrounding the witch and the crows added a unique twist to the story.

Readers who enjoy intriguing mysteries will find much to appreciate in this unputdownable tale.

Highly recommended.

I received a free copy of this eBook from St. Martin’s Press / Minotaur Books and NetGalley
#TheWitchsOrchard #NetGalley

A new Pl to add to your reading list. Annie Gore is looking for the next case to pay her bills when she gets pulled into a cold case. A small town, 3 Kidnapped girls, and a brother who wants answers. Great setting and an intriguing protagonist.

The Witch's Orchard
By Archer Sullivan

This is a fascinating whodunit. Annie is a private investigator who is approached by a young man named Max Andrews, whose baby sister disappeared 10 years ago from her home during a period when three little girls from the town disappeared without a trace. All these years young Max has felt that he was somehow to blame for Molly's disappearance. He has not been able to get on with his life and has saved every penny he has to hire Annie to solve the mystery of the missing girls.

Jessica was the first to be taken. Her family was considered "trashy"; thus the search for her was half-hearted. But then, a short time later, another little girl, Olivia, is taken, and the town panics. Amazingly, two weeks later, Olivia (who is autistic) is returned to her home.

Molly, Max's sister, becomes the third girl abducted. When Annie agrees to try to find Molly, her presence stirs up a lot of angst and anger – and things start to happen.

This is an exceptionally good story, with lots of possible villains and reasons for the abductions. Just when you think you've got it figured out, the author throws you another curvebaIl. It will be interesting to see if Ms. Sullivan writes another book about Annie Gore!

Really fun and interesting read! For me, Deena was not the first obvious choice, but she was also not a complete surprise when it all came out. I was really surprised at the way Jessica acted when she was found/caught. I never would have guessed she was thinking of that place as a palace and wanted to stay there instead of going home to her family.

Overall, a really good book and kept me wondering what would happen at the end.

If this is a debut novel, I can't wait for an encore. The characters, the setting and the storytelling were all captivating. I look forward to reading more Archer Sullivan books.

Thank you, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC. I was very interested in reading this, having lived in North Carolina for a short time, but not in the western part of the state. I was intrigued by the setting with Appalachian Mountains and small towns as the backdrop for this book. I love a good thriller so this seemed like just the kind of book I would enjoy. And I did, as I couldn't put it down. I really liked the main character, Annie, who is a private investigator. It was a good who dunnit, along with a nice perspective of life lived by those in Appalachia. I highly recommend this book!

A great debut! Found the characters engaging and the mystery intriguing. Would 100% read more from this author.

Annie Gore is a private investigator. She is tough, savvy, and determined to uncover what happened to three little girls who went missing from their small Appalachian town. As Annie starts digging around, she stirs up a hornet’s nest of secrets and people eager to keep them hidden. This is a solid thriller, filled with complex characters and an authentic setting. Archer Sullivan excels at crafting a tense narrative that keeps you on the edge of your seat. I really enjoyed this one! Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

This was a fantastic story! I loved Annie and I adored the entire cast of characters. It was told so well and with so much nuance. I loved that everyone had a different version of the Witch’s lore. It made the story better developed and I really enjoyed the fast paced plot. Great story, definitely recommend, and can’t wait for more Annie Gore stories!

4.5 stars!
Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC!

Phenomenal debut. The writing was gorgeous, not over the top, but able to set a strong atmosphere. The applehead dolls and the setting added a great spooky/eerie feeling to the book. I thought the twists and turns were great, without being too unbelievable. I thought the ending was well set up, which I prefer to completely unpredictable/bizarre endings. I found myself second-guessing a lot of the characters even when it made no sense for them to be the culprir. I still had some questions about the ending but now that I know this is a series, I am invested to hear more!

This gets your attention and doesn't let go. The twists and turns were page turning and didn't know which way it was going to go. It had been a minute where a book keeps me on the edge of my seat. The elements, characters were so good. One of the best reads for me this year.

Phenomenal writing with masterful crafting of characters. I never felt bored or felt the need to move on, I stayed engaged and am incredibly pleased with this piece.

I could not put this book down. The characters were vivid and memorable, enough so that even I could keep track of the large cast. Although I do not have the main character's tenacity and patience, I was happy to follow her as she dug and dug and dug to find the truth. There were plenty of red herrings and twists to keep you turning the pages! The setting was a little bit atmospheric and mysterious, but not so much that it distracted from the PLOT. My rating is knocked down to four stars only because of some language and a completely off-page one night stand. Pick up this book to get lost in the small NC mountain town vibes and swept up into a mystery that will keep you devouring chapter after chapter, without keeping you up at night with the willies.

Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for a free eARC of this novel!

This book was a great historical fiction. I really enjoyed the story and the mystery woven in. Overall held my interest and had a decent story line that kept me guessing til the end!

'The Witches Orchard' is a contemporary mystery/thriller set deep in the hills of Appalachia. This novel is the atmospheric story of Annie Gore, former Air Force Special Investigator, now turned private citizen and private eye. With not much more to her name than her beloved Honey, a Datsun 26OZ, Annie makes a meager living with her P.I. license. Eighteen-year-old Max Andrews travels all the way to Louisville, Kentucky from western North Carolina to petition Annie to investigate the disappearance of his then four-year-old baby sister, the third girl to go missing from their small town, nearly a decade before. Annie knows a hopeless case when she sees one, but Max's pain proves to be too much for her to ignore. With warnings of the futility of her search at this late date, Annie agrees to a week-long contract to search for missing Molly. Small towns can hide a multitude of sins however, and Annie learns just how wrong her assumptions about this case could be.

As a sixth-generation Appalachian woman living in eastern Kentucky, I was able to relate to the character of Annie so much. 'The Witch's Orchard' covers issues indigenous to the mountain area that both the setting of this novel and I call home. Generational poverty, lack of resources, stereotyping, and superstitions are just a few of the topics touched upon during Annie's investigation into the missing girls of Quartz Creek. The topic covered more than any other though, is motherhood. It dives into motherhood in its different forms, and the clever use of the tale of the Quartz Creek Witch, and how it changes from telling to telling, is a great device to show how people perceive things differently. This book is so well written. The dialect, the regional phrases, and the vivid descriptions of Quartz Creek itself all combine to firmly place you in the mountains of Appalachia.

'The Witch's Orchard' is a highly enjoyable mystery to read, its clues scattered like apple seeds themselves in the pages of this book. With a little close door romance, and some hints of the mysterious Leo to intrigue me more about Annie's past, I sincerely hope that we see more novels with Annie and her exploits in the future.

Archer Sullivan does an excellent job of bringing you into the moment with her descriptions of the scenes and settings that she drops you into right from the get go at Roxanne's. I've never met anyone who hasn't been to a diner and who couldn't relate to the smell memory she brought forward with the opening scene of the book. The book had an interesting way of making me ask questions when something didn't feel right, and then answering them for me. It kept me engaged in the book, and invested in the story line. The story felt real to me.

The mystery of the missing girls had me thinking that I knew where this was going, the doing an about face and fully invested at the plot twist. I was there in that town, I was accusing neighbors. I kept a sticky note at my desk of who could have done it, their reasons and the how. I was full fledged invested in the story, in the investigation, in this small town.

I enjoyed the way the story of the witch was told in different ways, how each person had their own variation of it that they had heard. It felt more real, like the way lore has been passed down through the generations in reality.