It didn’t completely blow my mind, but it definitely kept my attention and kept me guessing. The setting is vivid and palpable, the characters are full of secrets and have complex relationships with each other, and the mystery at the heart of this story is eerie. In the end, Dark and Shallow Lies is a great debut novel from a really promising author. I didn’t see it coming, but it was pretty compelling to see what exactly happened to Elora, and how, and why. I can’t go too much into the plot without delving into spoilers, so I’ll just say that the final climactic revelations were really intense and exciting. There are quite a few secondary characters, and yet they are all distinct, and I wasn’t confused about who was who. Grey was a good protagonist, and the other characters like Hart and Evie were well-written as well. I liked watching the gradual shift in the relationships between the characters. The idea that a girl could go missing, and no one seems to know what happened, despite this being a town of psychics, was fascinating. I also thought the mystery was really intriguing. It’s all so vivid, and really draws you into the story. I can really picture the town, and Sain does a wonderful job portraying the humidity and heat of the place. The first thing I want to mention is how great the atmosphere is-everything feels so ominous and haunting. So Grey is determined to find out what happened to Elora, and in doing so starts to unearth secrets that get darker and darker the more she learns. And being a town that is filled with clairvoyants and psychics, the mystery is even stranger. Her lifelong best friend, Elora, went missing three months ago, and no one knows if she’s dead or alive.

In Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain, Grey returns to her hometown in Louisiana for the summer, but everything feels different.

Dark and shallow lies review