PINTEREST
BLOGLOVIN
GOODREADS
Nothing ever happens in sleepy little Fairhill.
The teenagers get their kicks telling ghost stories in the old graveyard. The parents trust their kids will arrive home safe from school. Everyone knows everyone. Curtains rarely twitch. Front doors are left unlocked.
But this morning all of that will change.
Because Diana Brewer isn’t lying safely in her bed where she belongs. Instead she lies in a hayfield, circled by vultures, discovered by a local farmer.
How quickly a girl becomes a ghost. How quickly a town of friendly, familiar faces becomes a town of suspects, a place of fear and paranoia.
Someone in Fairhill did this. Everyone wants answers.
And one innocent question could be deadly.
Publisher: Bantam /Transworld
Formats: ebook, hardback, audiobook (18 July 2024) | paperback (8 May 2025)
352 pages
Source: Borrowed from Library
MY THOUGHTS
I’ve read most of Shari Lapena’s books with some of them being reviewed here on the blog – An Unwanted Guest, The End of Her, Not A Happy Family and always enjoy them. I think this latest, What Have You Done is perhaps one of her darkest with a different element added.
Set in Vermont, Fairhill is a quiet town where nothing bad happens and everyone knows each other. There was definitely those small town vibes here. People routinely leave their doors unlocked but when the naked body of 17 year old student Diana Brewer is found murdered in a local farmer’s field, residents are scared. Who could have done this? Surely it must have been someone passing through, it couldn’t have been one of their own.
There were no end of suspects here with behaviours from the rather clingy and controlling through to stalkerish. I had my suspicions about everyone, the clever writing leads you down that road with its curveballs and revelations ….but I honed in on a suspect almost from the beginning, and bingo!
Told from multiple perspectives this was such an addictive and engaging read with a paranormal element, which honestly sometimes I find can be unconvincing. However here it wasn’t overdone, but seemed a natural addition to the story. (In the author’s note at the back, there is an explanation as to the setting and why it has a ghostly vibe). Everyone had their secrets, even Diana, the murdered girl but who would kill someone who apparently was so popular and well liked by everyone. Her divorced mother is grief stricken with the loss of her only child, her friends are devastated and then there are those with guilty consciences. So many lies and deceit with their far reaching consequences to watch unravel.
I enjoyed this well paced and intriguing thriller, however if I was nitpicking, I felt that the resolution seemed rather rushed. With its short snappy chapters that I love I was picking this up at every chance. Both entertaining and gripping, I look forward to the next book from Shari Lapena.
Shari Lapena is the internationally bestselling author of the thrillers The Couple Next Door, A Stranger in the House, An Unwanted Guest, Someone We Know, The End of Her, Not a Happy Family and Everyone Here is Lying which have all been Sunday Times and New York Times bestsellers. Her books have been sold in forty territories around the world. She lives in Toronto.
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