Under a Dark Sky ~ Lori Rader-Day (Published August 7, 2018)

Rader-Day, Lori. 2018. Under a Dark Sky. New York, NY: William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0062846143. $26.99 USD.

Last year I read The Day I Died by Lori Rader-Day and knew I'd read anything she wrote going forward; so I was thrilled to get a chance to read Under a Dark Sky which will be published August 7th.

This novel has an Agatha Christie feel:  there are a group of people in a house with hidden secrets, motivations, and resentments. Then violent things start happening; but who is responsible for them? That's the mystery. But this book is more than just a who-done-it. It addresses themes of loss, grief, emotional trauma, revenge, and justice all wrapped in a mystery that isn't easy to figure out. I wasn't sure "who-done-it" until the very end, which is always a plus in a mystery!

Eden Wallace has developed Nyctophobia (fear of the dark) after the loss of her husband, Bix. She finds a reservation for a vacation at a dark sky park in Michigan after Bix's death, and decides to keep the reservation which coincides with what would have been their 10th anniversary, using the the time to try to figure out what her life will be like going forward. When she arrives at the park, she is surprised when the house that was reserved by Bix has other guests: a group of twenty-somethings who are staying there for a celebration of sorts. Since it's already too late for her to leave (it's dark outside, after all), she decides to stay one night. That turns out to be a mistake, because one of the group is murdered the first night, and she becomes a suspect.

There are a lot of surprises gradually revealed about all the characters in this book, and the author does a great job of dropping the unexpected into the narrative at just the right time. The story holds, which is my way of giving praise to an author's efforts to keep all the parts of the story in a fine balance. This one kept me up past my bedtime!

Happy Reading!