Karin Slaughter does it again! We Are All Guilty Here captivated me right from page one. This was my first time reading one of her books in physical form (I usually go the audiobook route), and I was worried it wouldn’t hold my attention the same way. Spoiler alert: it absolutely did—I couldn’t put it down.

As with all of Slaughter’s novels, this one comes with a long list of trigger warnings. Her stories often blur the line between fiction and true crime, and while this particular book is slightly less graphic than some of her others, it still includes disturbing content that had my stomach churning more than once.

The structure is classic Slaughter—long chapters, layered storytelling, and twist after twist that hit you before you’ve even found your footing. It’s the kind of organized chaos that makes her books so addictive. She’s quickly climbing the ranks as one of my favorite thriller writers.

There were a few moments when the nitty-gritty details of the crime felt a little repetitive, and I wasn’t fully sold on some of the family dynamics toward the end, but they did help tie the story together in a satisfying way.

All in all, this is another strong entry in the Karin Slaughter canon. If you’re a fan of dark, intense thrillers that mess with your head in the best way, you don’t want to miss this one. Set your calendar for August 12—We Are All Guilty Here is coming, and North Falls has secrets.

Thanks to William Morrow Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC!

This was a good book. It held my interest. It had a few surprises. I was unable to guess who the killers were. I will definitely look for more books by this author.

Having read a few Karin Slaughters books, I knew this would be a fun thriller to read. This one, you think you have all the clues and such figured out but then the twist or twists happen. Overall, it was a fun thriller to read and try and figure everything out! Well written and great read.

I received a free advanced copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

(2.75 stars) I’d only read one Karin Slaughter book prior to this one (Pretty Girls), and I really loved it. This one, however, was a huge disappointment. I didn’t totally hate it, but I had to kind of trudge through it. I feel like this book was incredibly longer than it needed to be, and there were so many abrupt and disconnected parts of the story. I also feel like there were quite a few unnecessary details that were never given any meaning. All of the characters (except Jude) needed intense therapy—the Cliftons truly excelled at passing down their emotional immaturity (with an awareness that they were doing so and no attempt to change anything). Finally, I was not a fan of the plot twists. The perpetrator reveal was fine, but the additional plot twist at the very end frankly annoyed me—it just felt unnecessary. All that being said, I would still read another KS book. This one just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

This is a fantastic read for fans of psychological thrillers.
It is Set in a small town and it follows two women whose lives are changed by a tragic event. The story is full of twists and keeps you hooked from start to finish.

Okay new Karin slaughter fan reporting for duty!!
This is the second book I have read from slaughter and I admire how realistically and respectfully she portrays the pain the family members of murder victims through. I can empathize with them thanks to her moving descriptions and stories.

I’m so excited this is gonna be a series and we are gonna get more stories from north falls. All these characters have secrets I can’t wait to be revealed
Thanks to the publisher and Karin slaughter for providing me with an ARC of this amazing book!

Thank you to NetGallery and William Morrow for an ARC of this book!

I could not put this book down! I absolutely loved it. It was full of twists, had great character development throughout the book, and kept my attention the whole time.

The writing was top tier, and the story was so descriptive. The setting is in a small town, and I could picture the atmosphere throughout the book.

With how detailed the writing is, I loved the characters, even though they had their flaws. I was emotionally invested in their journeys. They all had great depth and individuality.

I’m usually not big on thriller/mystery series, but I would definitely consider reading future North Falls books based on how amazing this first book is!

Thanks to Netgalley & William Morrow for the E-ARC! Really enjoyed! Liked the twists & turns throughout. Well-done characters too. Will read more from this author.

This was my first Karin Slaughter book, and I absolutely loved her writing style. The characters were well-developed, and I found myself completely invested in the storyline. I’m very picky when it comes to thrillers, but this one truly stood out—and I know it will stay with me for a while. I’ll definitely be reading more from this author!

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

4.5 stars for me! Karin Slaughter does it again with this thriller that’s sure to leave you guessing at every turn! This book hooks you in after the first chapter or two, and you’ll soon find yourself wound up in the child abduction case that our main character, Emmy, thought she already solved. But when another child is abducted, Emmy is forced to go back over the case, and some characters from her past might not be exactly who they say they are. This book had me second guessing who I thought the culprit would be, and is full of twists and turns that are signature to every Karin book. There’s also a little bonus plot twist in the end that really tied up each character’s storyline nicely.

Holy smokes I could not put this book down! I stayed up past 2 in the morning and reached for it the second I opened my eyes.
Emmy is a deputy for the North Falls PD. Her best friend Hannah’s 15 y/o stepdaughter, Madison, turns up missing after a 4th of July fireworks show in town. Emmy was one of the last people to see her, and feels guilty for shutting down Madison’s attempt to reach out to her while she rushed to hide after a public argument with her husband. Now Emmy and her father, Gerald, the town sheriff, must put together the missing pieces to try and beat the clock to find Madison and her friend Cheyenne, (also missing) alive.
Emmy and her dad are talking about the cop instinct- the don’t feel right- DFR, or “the tickle”, and every time they came across a situation that mentioned it my body was covered in goosebumps.
So thrilling, twists and new discoveries at every turn. Will have your mind spinning trying to figure out who’s hiding what and uncovering the truth. Trigger warning to those with young girls. I have 4, and it took me over an hour to get to sleep after reading this the first night my anxiety was so high. Will make you hug them tighter afterwards for certain.
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

2.75 rounded to 3 stars.
I had super high hopes for this one and I seem to be in the minority with all the other reviews posted on this one, but I didn’t love it. I thought it was WAY too long and drawn out. I found myself picking up other things to read instead of this one. The first 25-30% I was pretty interested in, but it just didn’t hold my interest.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: I am sad to report I DNF'd this book at 40 percent but I feel that I can accurately and authentically share with you my experience and hopefully bring those to this book who may enjoy it. This was my first Karin Slaughter book and I think that matters. From my perspective, the writing, pacing and storytelling felt like rushed and repetitive. The small town feel was done well, you are introduced to a number of characters that are connected and woven tightly together. Living in a small town myself, where people carry many hats and roles, I did feel suffocated (in a realistic way) by this. I also felt like the way information was revealed was too convenient and again just feltlike we went from one thing to the other never really landing anyway. The reason I DNF'd is because I felt like we were just going from interview to interview, we didn't get a lot about the main character and her life and this is going to be a series. Yes we learned vague things about her, but we never felt those things. A major relationship in her life fails and there is no demonstration of how this impacts her. I wanted more characterization. If you enjoy police procedural and James Patterson books I think you will enjoy this. I by no means hated it or felt angry, I just didn't care what happened in the end. I went through tons of outlandish scenarios and didn't feel anything for the characters, that is always my cue to stop reading. If I had all the time in the world to read endlessly, I maybe would have finished it but I don't, sadly.

In typical Karin Slaughter fashion, she nailed it! The story pulls the reader in, I was so invested! The writing is fairly graphic, not that that’s a surprise compared to Karin’s other novels. You find yourself rooting for the main characters and wanting every bad thing to happen to the “bad guys”. There was family drama intertwined with the thrills we have come to expect.

Thank you to Karin Slaughter, NetGalley, and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

📚 We Are All Guilty Here
✍ Karin Slaughter
📖 Mystery/Thriller
⭐3.5/5
📆 Out 8/12/25
➡ When two teenage girls go missing in a small southern town, it will take everything Officer Emmy Clifton has to uncover the secrets they were hiding and who is responsible for their disappearance.

🙏 Thank you to William Morrow, NetGalley and the author for the advanced digital copy of We Are All Guilty Here. All opinions are my own.
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🎯 What I loved: First, I would be remiss not to preface my review with the fact that this book (like many of Slaughter's) is D-A-R-K. The content, the resolution- it's a lot so go in knowing that there are a lot of trigger warnings and the content is absolutely upsetting. That said, I liked that this was as much about the missing girls case as it was about the main character and lead officer on the case, Emmy Clifton. Emmy was a fascinating character who readers saw feel immense amounts of guilt, grief and growth related to both her personal and professional life throughout the book that spanned over 12 years. And, it sounds like this is the first book in a series so there will be more books centered around her!

🙅‍♀️ What I didn't: This book kept my interest but I think it was longer than it needed to be because the author wasn't quite sure where she was going with things until later in the story and there was a lot of back and forth and more red herrings than necessary. The story at the beginning, though connected to what happened later, seemed like it was heading somewhere very different than what was revealed to have transpired later and it felt poorly planned.
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Read if you love:
*small-town thrillers
*dark interconnected crimes
*police main characters
*big time jumps
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See also: All Good People Here, She's Not Sorry, A Flicker in the Dark, Daughter of Mine

Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. I couldn't get past the first 20% of this book because there are too many run on sentences and not enough dialogue between the characters.

I love Karin Slaughter! I’m a bit fan of her Will Trent series and was excited to get started. I found the first portion of the book - the ‘before’ - to be a bit less developed as the main story. Fortunately, that was a short part and once we got going with the real mystery, I was locked in.

I love how well Slaughter draws her characters. They really become breathing living humans. Her world building is also great - and it was on display here as she developed the intertwined nature of a small town. I’m thrilled that this is just the first in a series. Excited to return to North Falls next time!

An absolute page turner. I could.notmput this book down. Another 5 star read. A thrilling mystery with suspense and twists at every chapter. The ending left me shaing my head. Here's to hoping this is book one of a series as I would live for the story to delve deeper.

This was definitely a page turner! The only other book I've written by Karin is "Pretty Girls," which was very disturbing. I was sort of thinking that Gerald would end up being a bad guy. Definitely some good and unexpected twists though!

“We are All Guilty Here” is in many ways typical Karin Slaughter—which is meant as a complement. Slaughter’s novels always have tight, tense, well-plotted stories. She’s one of the best writers around now in terms of edge-of-your-seat plotting. Her writing is always crisp, clear, and direct—no side trips through flowery descriptive passages unless they are needed in the plot. This book is like that too. And, in this, as with all her books that I’ve read, the characters are sharply drawn, compelling, and believable. The police procedural aspects in this—as in her other books—seem authentic.

The story needs a trigger warning—but don’t all of her books as she’s known for violence as well as her characters and stories? Here, be forewarned that the violence is horrific and directed at teen girls. The main character—Emmy Lou Clifton, first a deputy/detective, then chief deputy, then sheriff—quotes statistics about the number of abducted, abused, raped, and murdered children in the UA and overwhelmingly the victims are female. While Slaughter does not rub her readers’ nose in prolonged, overly graphic violence, it’s there in this book and it is disturbing. Slaughter does not put the reader in the midst of it, thank goodness, but takes a step back and has law enforcement reveal the extent of the torture, abuse, and damage to the victims through their investigations. And that is horrifying enough.

The novel is also a bit disjointed in ways I’ve never seen in her prior books. Part of that is the structure—the first half concerns the kidnapping of two best friend teen girls. The second part is 12 years later and concerns, among other things, the kidnapping of yet another girl in a way similar to the prior crime. Given the dual timeline, some jarring transitions can be expected, but several times important back story info is dropped in almost as if Slaughter thought—oh, yeah, I forgot to mention…

Yet, this is an excellent book, thoughtfully plotted and surely intended to also educate readers about the lurking dangers for children and teens. What exactly can be done to fix the dangers is beyond this review and reviewer—but if I had children or teens, I’d certainly have them taking self-defense classes and learning some form of martial arts.

I thank Netgalley for allowing me to read an advanced reader’s copy of this haunting book. These are my honest opinions and observations about this book.