Friday 19 July 2024

Book ~ "What Have You Done?" (2024) Shari Lapena

From Goodreads ~ Nothing ever happens in sleepy little Fairhill, Vermont. But this morning that will change. And one innocent question could be deadly. What have you done?

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 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.


Diana is a popular teenager so everyone is surprised when her naked body is found in a farmer's field. Surprisingly there are lots of suspects for the police to interview. Mourning her are her mother, who believes Diana's presence is still with her, her broken-hearted boyfriend, Cameron, and her best friends, Riley and Evan. As the story evolves, we discover that many in the cute friendly town have secrets they don't want revealed.

I've read a few books by this author and thought this one was okay. I liked the writing style. It's written in third person perspective with a focus on wherever the action is along with Diana's ghostly narrations and Evan's diary entries. Though there were lots of red herrings as to who could have murdered Diana, I thought the "whodunnit" was a bit of a letdown and kind of came out of the blue. As a head's up, there is swearing.

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