Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain

A teen girl disappears from her small town deep in the bayou, where magic festers beneath the surface of the swamp like water rot, in this chilling supernatural thriller for fans of Natasha Preston, Karen McManus, and E. Lockhart.

La Cachette, Louisiana, is the worst place to be if you have something to hide.

This tiny town, where seventeen-year-old Grey spends her summers, is the self-proclaimed Psychic Capital of the World--and the place where Elora Pellerin, Grey's best friend, disappeared six months earlier.

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Grey can't believe that Elora vanished into thin air any more than she can believe that nobody in a town full of psychics knows what happened. But as she digs into the night that Elora went missing, she begins to realize that everybody in town is hiding something--her grandmother Honey; her childhood crush Hart; and even her late mother, whose secrets continue to call to Grey from beyond the grave.

When a mysterious stranger emerges from the bayou--a stormy-eyed boy with links to Elora and the town's bloody history—Grey realizes that La Cachette's past is far more present and dangerous than she'd ever understood. Suddenly, she doesn't know who she can trust. In a town where secrets lurk just below the surface, and where a murderer is on the loose, nobody can be presumed innocent—and La Cachette's dark and shallow lies may just rip the town apart.

Y'all know I love a Southern Gothic (which is why I wrote my own) — plus a strong sense of place. The two often dovetail. For Southern Gothic, some attributes include a lush but decaying setting: humid and rich, but with a touch of darkness often sourced from some deeper lore, folk belief, or history (i.e. the sordid history of a plantation, or the evils of systemic poverty interwoven with a specific location.) Themes might include tension between the realistic and supernatural, buried histories, fear of outsiders, etc,.

Anyway: Dark and Shallow Lies hit the spot. A small town supernatural mystery steeped in the swamps of Louisiana? Oh, baby.

Had I just read the jacket copy, I admittedly might have skipped it. I'm so over the missing sister or best friend storyline; I understand why it happens, but just largely feel like it's the same plot — at least in regards to internal beats — over and over again. It's right up there with the can you trust your spouse? genre of mystery/thriller á la Gone Girl or The Undoing (show): so familiar that it's lost its emotional tension for me, personally. Especially when they've had a falling out that leads to regret and personal urgency. Still, several books do it extremely well. For example, The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert is one of my favorite books of the year, but I had the same critique.

I'm extremely grateful I gave this book a chance, because it also became one of my favorites of 2024.

What I loved most about Dark and Shallow Lies is that it feels like a callback to the best of the late '00s and early '10s paranormal genre, which formed the foundation of my reading taste. It's eerie, atmospheric, and has a heavy dose of angst.

Pages flew by. I sank into the story and devoured it. The setting did so much (definitely "place as character") and the awkward, pang-filled distance of a childhood friend group did the rest. I think so much of the Southern Gothic descriptor is predicated on a fear of change while it's unfolding, and I loved how that tension was expressed in a core group of kids who were starting to outgrow each other (and keep secrets.)

Admittedly, I still didn't feel like the sisterhood-like devotion to Elora (the missing girl) was quite drastic enough. One of my tests of characterization is also whether or not I remember the main character's name, and I had to Google it because she didn't feel all that memorable. I loved the grandma, Hart was super interesting for his (perhaps toxic) darkness, and families definitely had skeletons in their closets.

I love how it gradually darkened and escalated throughout. The pace was ideal for my attention span. Red herrings had me surprised and intrigued all the way through to the end. The author's written other books, and now I want to go through and read them all. There's a lot you have to roll with — like a kid born through a hurricane — that adds to this beating pulse of lore, that added to the creepy energy.

The magic element was introduced early on, which made it easy to believe, although genre-wise, it definitely leaned more thriller than paranormal at the end. Up until then, I was still glued for the vibe, but it was a lot of haunting conversations and suspicions. It reminded me of House of Hollow in that some descriptors felt heavy-handed (another book I love), but I was still overall obsessed.

It was very transporting, which is usually the main indicator of whether I'll love a book. I can hear the wind chimes and feel the sticky heat. The dark water lapping against a boat as the two secretive childhood friends drink beer and talk about regrets. Moody to the max.

My one critique (or flaw) is the following — skip if you don't want book club-worthy spoilers:

I personally thought it was incredibly unrealistic for her family to leave the main character alone and behind during a building hurricane. I mean, I'm from Florida (hurricanes galore) and especially[object Object]in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, that would simply not happen. Grey's a 17-year-old teenager and has no agency, but it felt like the grandmother caved too quickly in something as crucial as basic safety. It felt like extreme plot armor. I understood the why—as the author needed a ticking time bomb and the impending storm darkened the narrative oh-so-deliciously, and often, we need an excuse for the adults to depart the story. Still. These were life-or-death stakes and a family member would simply not.

I decided I'd let this picky aspect of the ending go, and still relished the story. So while I disagreed with that twist in execution, I still loved absolutely everything about it. The voice was phenomenal.

Overall, I loved the setting, enjoyed the prose, and loved the narrowing down of the perspective as the story went along. I was happy to just sink into it and feel the disintegration, which is always a fabulous reading experience for me. There were a few plot elements and characterization that weren't it for me, but they didn't detract from my love of the book.

Recommended for those who love:

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland; The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert; Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl; Bittersweet in the Hollow by Kate Pearsall; Rory Power; Amy Goldsmith; Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian; The Counselors by Jessica Goodman; etc,.