What Lies in the Woods
by Kate Alice Marshall
Narrated by Karissa Vacker
Why Listen to This Audiobook?
She survived seventeen stab wounds and helped convict a serial killer — but the secret she's been hiding since is the one that might actually destroy her.
- Great if you want: dark secrets, female friendships, and a twisty past unraveling
- Listening experience: tense and claustrophobic, with a slow-burn that earns its payoff
- Narration: Vacker captures Naomi's dread and fractured trust convincingly
- Skip if: you dislike unreliable narrators or ambiguous moral territory
About This Audiobook
Twenty-two years ago, Naomi Shaw and her two childhood friends played the Goddess Game in the woods, a world of ceremony and secret ritual they made up together. The summer ended when Naomi was stabbed seventeen times and survived to identify a serial killer. Now Olivia wants to tell the truth about what really happened in those woods, and Naomi has to decide whether the secret they have kept for two decades is worth protecting at any cost. Kate Alice Marshall's psychological thriller is built around the gap between a story that ended a serial killer's career and the truth that the story concealed.
Karissa Vacker brings the right combination of control and concealed panic to Naomi's first-person narration, letting the reader sense what she is not saying as much as what she is. The novel's gradual revelation of what the Goddess Game actually was unfolds precisely in audio, and Vacker maintains the narrative tension through the long setup toward the revelation. This dual Goodreads Choice Award winner is one of the stronger psychological thrillers of recent years.
