What Waits in the Woods by Terri Parlato

Title: What Waits in the Woods

Author: Terri Parlato

Publisher: Kensington

Publication date: December 26, 2023

*ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for honest review

Synopsis (Goodreads)

In this riveting thriller from a new master of suspense, a young dancer’s homecoming is marred by a grisly discovery—and the realization that nothing in her past may be quite what she believed.

When Esmé Foster left the Boston suburbs to become a professional ballerina, the future shimmered with promise. Eleven years later, her career has been derailed by an injury, and Esme knows it’s time to come back to Graybridge to help her brother care for their ailing father. But her return coincides with an unthinkable crime. Kara Cunningham, one of Esme’s high school friends, is found dead in the woods behind the Fosters’ house.

Esmé is shocked and grieving, but also uneasy. In her dreams, she still sees the man who showed up at the scene of the car accident that killed her mother—and told Esmé he was going to kill her too. Family and friends insisted the figure was a product of Esmé’s imagination, that she was concussed after the crash. But she and Kara looked alike, sharing the same petite build, the same hair color. Could Kara’s murder have been a case of mistaken identity?

Detective Rita Myers is familiar with close-knit communities like Graybridge, where, beneath the friendliness, there are whispers and secrets. The town has seen other tragedies too, including the long-ago drowning of a young girl in a pond, deep in the woods. Even within the once-close circle of friends that included Kara and Esmé, Rita discerns a ripple of mistrust.

Day by day, Esmé discovers more about the place she left behind—and the friends and family she thought she knew. Soon, shining a light into the darkness to learn what really happened the night Kara died is the only way she can bring the nightmare to an end . .

My thoughts

This was definitely more of a police procedural than a thriller, which I wasn't expecting when I started the book. Once I realized that, my expectations shifted I was ready to love the story, but unfortunately it fell flat for me. The writing style is heavy on dialogue and as much as I wanted to love the dueling POVs of Esme and Detective Rita, I found it hard to connect with them for that reason.

 I also found that the mystery was a little bogged down with family drama that I couldn't care too much about because I was already having a hard time with connecting with our protagonists at all.

As for the ending, it felt very abrupt. I feel like there was not a lot of buildup to make the reveal of the killer feel satisfying, and it was ultimately disappointing.

This is part of a series but I had no trouble reading it as a standalone, and I think I might try to get my hands on the first book in the series just to see if I connect better with characters from the authors previous work.