Review of Deadly Little Secret by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Some secrets shouldn't be kept...

Up until three months ago, everything in sixteen-year-old Camelia's life had been fairly ordinary: decent grades; an okay relationship with her parents; and a pretty cool part-time job at the art studio downtown. But when Ben, the mysterious new guy, starts junior year at her high school, Camelia's life becomes anything but ordinary.

Rumored to be somehow responsible for his ex-girlfriend's accidental death, Ben is immediately ostracized by everyone on campus. Except for Camelia. She's reluctant to believe the rumors, even when her friends try to convince her otherwise. She's inexplicably drawn to Ben...and to his touch. But soon, Camelia is receiving eerie phone calls and strange packages with threatening notes. Ben insists she is in danger, and that he can help--but can he be trusted? She knows he's hiding something... but he's not the only one with a secret.


I decided to read this quite suddenly and I'm really glad that I did. It's quite a quick read, only took me about two hours and I read all of it in one sitting. I hadn't read the blurb before hand so I had idea what to expect from it but I was pleasantly surprised with a unique storyline and engaging characters.

The story is really suspenseful. I love whodunnits, so this instantly appealed as soon as I realised what was going on. I did guess 'who did it' very easily but I love being right so this was problem for me! The gifts and phone calls were a little stereotypical but I loved that we could get into the killer's head, with a few scrawled notes from them scattered throughout the book. This has a nice mix of paranormal, suspense and contemporary – somehow managing to have an equal balance all the way through, with the anticipated cheesy chase scene at the end, which was a little shorter than I expected. Trust is the main theme in this, as she's getting all sorts of creepy letters – and coincidentally a new boy has arrived in town, one she's in love with - problem is that there's rumours he killed his previous girlfriend by throwing her off a cliff. I did think Ben should have understood why she found it difficult to trust him, considering I doubted she could have gone to the Police as they would have locked Ben up straight away, regardless of evidence.

The reason why I've taken a star off was because I felt that the Author was trying too hard to appeal to Twilight fans. Right at the first chapter, Ben pushes Camelia away from a speeding car and then later becomes her lab partner. All the way he does a Cullen too. 'You can't go near me... I'm dangerous.' 'But I love you!' I didn't notice this too much during the story and only realised about the dangerous thing as I'm writing this review, however.
I'm not sure about the sequels. Book 5 is about to be released soon and personally, I would prefer this as a stand-alone. From reading the blurb of book 2, it doesn't sound particularly appealing as the plot is ripped straight from New Moon (I'm not kidding, go read it!). I will try it though, just to see.

4/5

Received free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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