We’ll Never Tell by Wendy Heard
Genre: Young Adult Mystery Thriller
Publishing Date: May 16, 2023
An ambitious and juicy whodunit doused in Hollywood lore, perfect for readers of sexy summer thrillers like The Twin by Natasha Preston and The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson.
No one at Hollywood High knows who’s behind We’ll Never Tell—a viral YouTube channel where the anonymous creators trespass behind the scenes of LA’s most intriguing locales. The team includes CASEY, quiet researcher and trivia champ; JACOB, voice narrator and video editor, who is secretly dating EDDIE, aspiring filmmaker; and ZOE, coder and breaking-and-entering extraordinaire.
Now senior year is winding down, and with their lives heading in different directions, the YouTubers vow to go out with a bang. Their last episode will be filmed at the infamous Valentini “murder house,” which has been left abandoned, bloodstained, and untouched since a shocking murder/suicide in 1972. When the teens break in, they capture epic footage. But someone trips an alarm, and it’s a mad dash to get out before the police arrive—at which point they realize only three of them escaped instead of four. Jacob is still inside, slain and bleeding out. Is his attack connected to the historic murder, or is one of their crew responsible?
A week of suspicions and cover-ups unfolds as Casey and her remaining friends try to stay alive long enough to solve murder mysteries past and present. If they do, their friendship may not survive. If they don’t, the house will claim more victims.
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REVIEW
We'll Never Tell is a gripping, fast-paced story where multiple mysteries with seemingly no connection are unraveled together. I really enjoyed how the story was broken up with the newspaper articles from the original mystery, the current POV, and the POV of the victim before, and so on. It sounds confusing but it was handled well and made the story even more thrilling as the reader slowly learned more and more from each perspective. The premise was also really fun: a group of best friends with an anonymous viral youtube channel where they break in and enter abandoned locations and show their unseen nighttime versions. With all of them off to college soon, they decide to do one final video-- going out with a bang-- The Valentini Murder House. But everything goes wrong and one of them doesn't come out when the others escape. The research aspects for their videos and the mystery, and the newspaper articles slightly reminded me of reading A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, especially as they got more involved in trying to solve the case, but still very different. The best friends we thought we knew became unreliable narrators with messy drama and secrets. After reading the acknowledgments I discovered the author based the original murder on a true story which I found very interesting and made me want to go down a research rabbit-hole Casey style. If you love classic YA mystery/thrillers I think you should definitely consider checking this one out! It was fast and fun but still had some tense moments that pulled at my heartstrings too.
** Thank you to the author and TBRandBeyond Tours for having me as a host. I received and ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
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