Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Bantam for the opportunity to read this ARC ahead of its release on June 3, 2025.

This novel pulled me in quickly with its strong sense of mystery and atmosphere. The story centers around the disappearance of young Black women in the 1960s, including the main character’s Aunt Carol. It’s a powerful and necessary premise that the author handles with care and emotional depth.

The pacing kept me turning pages, and while it’s a slow burn, it never felt dull—each chapter led smoothly to the next. By the halfway mark, I really liked the characters, and I appreciated how the book addressed mental health and generational trauma in thoughtful, grounded ways.

Despite the heaviness of the subject matter, the characters brought a warmth that balanced the tone. As someone from the South, I felt particularly grounded by the setting—it felt familiar and added a comforting dimension to the darker themes.

As a white reader, I approached this story with respect for the real, underrepresented issues it raises, particularly around missing Black Americans. I walked away having learned something meaningful, which speaks to the power of the book.

The ending brought the story together well, but I was left wanting just a bit more—especially time with one character whose arc felt slightly rushed. Still, the conclusion was strong, and overall, this was a thoughtful and emotionally resonant read.

For Fans Of: Missing White Woman, None of This is True
Rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
Genre: 🔪Suspense
Violence: 🪓🪓🪓[mostly off-page]
Spice: 💋
TW: racism, mental health episodes, miscarriages & fertility issues

Premise: Following the death of her grandmother, Sydney learns that her late father had an older sister who disappeared at 16. She was one of 6 black girls who disappeared from a Raleigh community in the 1960s. None were ever found. Sydney, a former journalist, feels compelled to discover what happened.

Thoughts: This is one of the best books I’ve read this year. I 💖 a book that both entertains & enlightens, a dichotomy especially well-suited to the suspense genre. Debut author Berry crafts a compelling hook of a central plot—6 teens whose disappearances remain unsolved 60 years later, 1 of whom our protagonist learns is an unknown aunt—& intertwines it with a heart-wrenching tale of social justice. As Berry shares, the truth at the 💖 of this fiction is that Black Americans make up a disproportionate percentage of missing people yet their disappearances are significantly less likely to receive news coverage. This is a page-turner of a novel with fully-realized characters you will root for. It is also a story of family, loss, community, grief, love, redemption and healing. I guarantee you will be delighted if you make We Don’t Talk About Carol your next read.

Thank you to Bantam & NetGalley for a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

My thanks to Net Galley, Random House Ballantine for allowing me to review this arc.

Who is Carol Singleton and what happened to her? That's what leads journalists/Podcaster Sydney Singleton to try to find out. What would you do when you realize you had an aunt , asked your family what happened to her and no one wants to talk about it? Added to that that other black girls disappeared around the same time as her aunt in the mid 60s and no one seems to care. Sydney, with the help of her sister Sasha bring attention back to the missing girls case

Well written, great story, loved the mystery and the family saga

Kristen L. Berry's debut novel, We Don't Talk About Carol, is a powerful exploration of family secrets, community silence, and the quest for justice. While I had a cursory awareness of the disparities in media coverage and systemic responses to cases of missing Black girls, Berry's novel brought these issues to the forefront in a way that was both eye-opening and deeply moving.

Our main character, Sydney Singleton, the niece of one of the missing Black girls, previously had a psychotic break. Her current quest to find the missing Black girls has similarities to the situation that caused that initial psychotic break. Sydney's character is well- developed, with her past psychotic break and current quest mirroring each other, adding layers to her struggle with identity and mental health.

The novel delves into thought-provoking issues such as family dynamics and secrets, explored through Sydney's fertility treatments and her struggle with the idea of motherhood. Additionally, the heartbreaking reality of families missing loved ones since the 1960s and the delayed quest for justice truly pulls at your heart strings.

The characters in this book are well-developed and connected with me as the reader. The pain, loss, and hope reflected in the story truly engaged me from the very first page. There is also a who-dun-it component as Sydney unravels the mystery of the missing Black girls. For a debut novel, We Don't Talk About Carol is a true winner, and I will be looking to read more books by Kristen L. Berry.

This book was great - I sped through the last quarter of it when everything started to come together. There are a lot of ideas here - missing girls, motherhood, career - and it felt a bit disjointed at times, like the new career as a PR person didn’t really relate to the rest. Also reviewed on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7190869757 and TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP86vQJ2C/

Received an ARC via NetGalley.

I really like the way this story was told. The story itself was good too, but the telling really sold the realism. Time passes in the book in a realistic way. The investigation took time and patience and a little bit of luck.

I think there’s a good balance too between the story of Carol and the story of Sydney. I like getting to know the narrator and who she is and why she’s invested, it makes me invested too. I also like a story that leaves you will a feeling of hope and new beginnings, especially when it comes to family.

This could even serve as the first in a series, with the podcast angle introduced. I’d for sure come back for more if that happened. It feels like a beginning.

Wow! This is Kristen L. Berry's debut novel and I am already anxious for new next release. This book was so well written and had so many layers and surprises.
While cleaning out her deceased grandmother's house, Sydney, a former reporter, uncovers a picture of an aunt she never knew existed. Her aunt went missing in the 1960's along with 5 other black girls from her town. Although the case hasn't been solved, no one is looking for these girls. Sydney decides to find answers.
While this is a work of fiction, the statistics the book shines a light on are very much true. People of color are reported missing more than their white counterparts. And, of those people reported missing, far less are given the attention their case needs due to the color of their skin. Please read the author note for more facts.
This is a book that you need to add to your "must read" pile.

This was a really good book. It centers on Sydney, who finds out she had an aunt that vanished 60 years ago as she is cleaning out her recently deceased grandmother's house. Sydney is a former reporter who loves a good investigation and starts looking into what could have happened, finding out that there were actually multiple teen girls that all went missing from the same neighborhood. At the same time, she is dealing with many deep family dynamics with her husband, her mom, and her sister.

All of the people in this book felt real and I felt like I got deep into their relationships by just the way the author described their feelings and conversations. My only small nit was that Sydney's current job didn't seem to fit everything else about her and she also didn't seem to take it all that seriously even though she came off as a hard worker in general. I thought that the mystery in the book was really well done (though was horrified that no one had done more at the time and about the way the disappearances of Black girls are handled versus the disappearances of white girls). There were good red herrings and a couple big twists that I did not see coming, even when I thought I had it all figured out. Usually when I am reading a mystery I am not that invested in the personal side stories but family was such an important theme of this book that all of these plots were woven together expertly.

Overall, this was a great read and I was a little sad to leave Sydney behind when I finished the book. It was an excellent mystery that also highlights an important issue related to the inequality of how things are handled. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

We Don't Talk About Carol unravels the mystery of a 60-year-old cold case involving missing Black women, while also delving into themes of family secrets, community, trauma, and motherhood.

There certainly were some sad parts in this book well as some maddening parts. It wasn't easy reading about the racial disparities in missing person investigations. And, family relationships are sometimes beyond challenging, especially if an emotionally distant mother is thrown into the mix.

I found a few conversations a bit stiff, and there was some repetition, but for the most part, Ms. Berry hit it out of the ballpark! I'm interested to see where she goes from here!!

Thank you, #Bantam, for providing this book for review and consideration via #NetGalley. All opinions are my own. We Don't Talk About Carol has an expected publication date of June 3, 2025.

📕 Ⓑⓞⓞⓚ Ⓡⓔⓥⓘⓔⓦ 📕

Title : We Don’t Talk About Carol
Author: Kristen L. Berry
Publisher: Bantam
Format: Kindle (Release June 3rd, 2025)
Review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Thank you NetGalley and Bantam for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a debut book for Kristen L. Berry and I don’t think I have read a mystery that is also a book hitting on so many social justice issues. Wow! After the death of her grandmother, our MFC Sydney discovers a long lost Aunt Carol who has been missing since the early 60s along with 5 other Black teenage girls in the historic Black neighborhood South Park, near Shaw University. What follows is Sydney’s amazing detective skills to not only find her Aunt Carol, but also to shed light on these missing Black teens (as a representation of the 36% Black missing person that have never been found) The book starts out with a lot of background to set the scene and after I hit 30%, I couldn’t stop thinking about where this book was going to end up. All of my guess were wrong, so hats off to you Kristen!
Make sure to check out the cover after you finish 😉
“You have to know what you are looking for to find it” -Sydney

Likes
🪻The description to details of setting and place are superb. I could totally feeel myself in the creeks in the South Park neighborhood.
🪻 Sydney’s exploration of her relationships with all of her family members.
🪻 The simultaneous story telling of a murder mystery and the relationship of Sunday’s marriage to her amazing husband Malik.
🪻the music details! (Check out the Spotify playlist I made from the songs in the book- https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3M58PY2DxhT9ffrwjdXK2d?si=ymB8NCSHTRKBbbjNv9nnpg&pi=zUw_SsfAQGi-J

Themes: Grief, Loss, PTSD, infertility, social justice, intergenerational trauma

Check out the Black and Missing Foundation after you read the book to help support the almost 14% of the country’s population that is missing.

#netgalley#bantam #arc #wedonttalkaboutcarol #bookreview

SYNOPSIS
-Sydney returns home after her grandmother’s death and stumbles on a photo of a girl who looks just like her.
-Turns out, the girl is her aunt Carol—someone the family literally refuses to talk about.
-Carol disappeared in the 1960s, along with several other promising young Black girls, and no one ever investigated it.
-Sydney, a journalist with her own trauma and complicated history, decides she has to uncover the truth—even if it unravels everything.
-What follows is a gripping mystery that’s just as much about family secrets and generational trauma as it is about justice.
——
MY THOUGHTS
-I cannot believe this is Kristen Berry’s debut novel. Like… where has she been hiding?!
-This book is part mystery, part family drama, and every part of it hit hard.
-The way Berry flips between past and present was so well done. Seamless, emotional, powerful.
-It dives deep into the chilling reality of missing Black girls and how easily their stories are erased.
-The characters? Phenomenal. So layered. Sydney especially felt incredibly real—raw, flawed, smart, and hurting.
-Berry doesn’t shy away from hard topics—mental health, infertility, family silence, internalized shame—it’s all here.
-The “we don’t talk about that” family dynamic? Nailed it. That generational silence felt so honest and familiar.
-Honestly, I loved the ending. It felt earned and satisfying.
——
TL;DR: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️This book wrecked me in the best way. It’s gripping, emotional, and so damn smart. Kristen Berry is one to watch. 5 stars.
——
THANKS: Thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Bantam and Netgalley for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book will be published on June 3, 2025.

We Don't Talk About Carol by Kristen L. Berry is an outstanding debut mystery novel that captivates from start to finish. The themes woven throughout the story are powerful and important. The narrative follows Sydney Singleton, who uncovers a hidden photograph of a little girl that strikingly resembles her more than her own sister or mother. This leads her to discover that the girl in the photo is her aunt, Carol, one of six Black girls from North Carolina who went missing in the 1960s. For far too long, the truth about Carol and her disappearance has been shrouded in silence. With her grandmother's passing and her own desire to start a family, Sydney is determined to uncover the truth behind her aunt’s mysterious fate and the unsettling silence that has lingered for decades.

This novel is a much-needed addition to the conversation about Black families. Berry skillfully addresses themes of inferiority, family trauma, and secrets, while also confronting the marginalization of race. The mystery is compelling, and the ending is expertly crafted. I am excited to read more from this talented author in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for an ARC in exchange for my honest review

This was my first book by Kristen L. Berry, and I would definitely pick up her work again.

The storyline was compelling, and I found her writing style to be engaging, educational, and even poetic at times.

The pacing, however, was the only aspect that prevented this from being a five-star read for me. At times, it felt repetitive and skimmable, which made it a bit too slow to maintain my interest. It took me nine days to finish, while I usually complete a book in 1 to 4 days.

That said, it's a book I would wholeheartedly recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this book because, to me, it started out slow. But gradually it picked up and I started to enjoy it. The main character, Sydney, I liked from the very beginning. She was smart and determined. Her husband, Malik, was the perfect fit for her.
Sydney was a journalist that found out she had an aunt that was kept a secret. She researched her aunt Carol, and found out that she had gone missing along with five other Black girls within a few months time frame in Raleigh. Because they were Black and not white girls the cases were never investigated. Sydney does her own investigating and finds out much about her family. She also grows closer to her sister. I can see this turning into another book where Sydney and her sister do a podcast on unsolved crimes.
Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for my early ARC.

Outstanding debut novel by a very talented writer. Sydney, the protagonist, is an extremely well-developed and multifaceted character. Berry was able to conjure one of those special characters that one thinks about after the novel ends, wondering what she is doing now, like an old friend from another time.
The story is fictional, but based upon the real fact that missing Black people do not receive the same attention from the media and law enforcement as missing White people receive. Berry sensitively and masterfully invites every reader into the world behind the faces and instead of focusing on their color, enables the reader to recognize and emphasize with their humanity. As a reader I was privileged to be invited into the lives of these families who, like many of us regardless of color or ethnicity, have had to live with painful secrets kept buried by the philosophy “What happens in this house stays in this house.”
Secrets and shame are deeply divisive and isolating. Berry exposes the damage wreaked on individual families and an entire community because of secrets and shame. In an exceptionally powerful way she manages to shine a spotlight on this in a Black community while simultaneously inviting in readers of all colors by acknowledging the race of the characters without using that as a factor in who they are as human beings. This essential and fundamental truth is sometimes forgotten in a quest to create “identity”.
I highly recommend this novel for an expertly crafted story of a pair of cruel serial killers that would have gone unsolved without the persistence of one brave woman.

Well, somebody somewhere really SHOULD have talked about Carol back in the sixties when she disappeared. It would have saved everyone involved a whole lot of heartache in the future.

This is a well written novel that touches on the years ago mysterious disappearance of Sydney's aunt, one that Sydney never even knew she had. It also delves into: the problem of universal lack of concern by authorities on the cases of missing black girls, the childhood traumas of Sydney at the hands of her father, the tense relationship between her and her younger sister Sasha (who is 35 and still lives with their mother), the lasting aftereffects of a nervous breakdown Sydney had a few years ago after getting too wrapped up in the case of a missing family and its tragic outcome, the stress of going through IVF treatments due to Syd and her husband's desperate desire for a child of their own, and her growing fear that her marriage is falling apart. Sounds like there's a lot going on? There is, and therein lies the only problem I had with this book. Each of these subjects would have been an interesting read on its own, but each of them are given too little time of their own due to the volume of different subjects the author kept needing to touch on.

Each story was well done though, thought out and detailed. To the point that at some spots the book dragged a bit with social commentaries and self-reflections, and the mystery of Carol's disappearance gets lost to the back burner at times. However, the writing was engaging, the mystery was suspenseful (once the author finally devoted most of her time to it), and this was a nice way to spend an afternoon or two.

Part mystery, part family drama, We Don't Talk About Carol is the story of Sydney Singleton and the long-lost aunt that she never knew...as well as the six other missing Black girls in North Carolina.

After her grandmother's death, Sydney, along with her mother and sister, is tasked with cleaning out the family's house. When there, Sydney remembers a photo of a woman who looked remarkably like her. The first time she finds the photo, she asks her grandmother who it is and is shut down with the statement, "We Don't Talk About Carol."

While the main storyline is the missing girls in the 1960s, and how the media and police did so little to find them, this is a story about PTSD and family trauma. Kristen Berry weaves the past and present together, while discussing abuse, infertility, and mental health so smoothly that falling in love with Sydney and her husband was easy.

While Sydney is on a journey for her missing aunt, she's also on a self-discovery of her truth, her life, and her past. It's a powerful examination of life and being a child of trauma.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Powerful book! Missing black girls go unnoticed and unreported far too often. This story about Carol highlighted how crucial it is to investigate every missing person. It also shows how important it is for families to talk and stop trying to hide their dirty laundry. Fans of true crime will love this book. The ending was so unexpected!

We Don’t Talk About Carol by Kristen L. Berry

Let me go ahead and get the stars out the way ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Wow for a debut novel.

This book was recommended to me by a reading buddy. She was insistent on me reading this book.

When I started, I went in blind. No idea what it was about. No idea this book was centered around my hometown of Raleigh, N.C. about 6 missing black girls missing without a trace in the early to mid 60’s.

Sydney & Sasha when they were little would visit their Grammy in Raleigh. One day, the found some clothes and a picture. When Syd confronted her Grandmother her response was “We Don’t Talk About Carol.”

Years later, Sydney and Sasha finds Carol’s diary. They were adamant they would find out what happened to their Aunt Carol and five other missing teens.

Kristen L. Berry, thank you for such an amazing read. I kept trying to guess how it all would come together. I was wrong.

My opinion is my own about how great this book was. The only way to know is to read it for yourself.

Sydney, an investigative journalist, travels to North Carolina to clean out her grandmother’s house following her death. While there, she discovers an old photograph of a teenage girl that bears a striking resemblance to her. After speaking to a neighbor, she discovers that the girl is her aunt, Carol, who was one of several girls that went missing in the 60’s, and that sets her off on a search to uncover what happened to her aunt and the other girls. We Don’t Talk About Carol is a heartfelt story that not only delves into the disappearance of the girls, but brings to the forefront the disproportionate amount of attention that missing black girls receive as opposed to white girls, woven masterfully into a mystery decades old. The story also focuses on Sydney’s private struggle to conceive, and the emotional toll it takes on her, as we follow her quest for the truth. This is a great read where the author finds just the right balance between social issues while never losing track of the main plot, and that keeps the reader spellbound and the pages turning. Well done! I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.