To be totally honest, the premise of Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain didn’t really catch me. Setting-heavy fiction isn’t something that particularly appeals to me, and the witchy small-town Louisiana setting is a major selling point of this one. Still, I had to read it for work so I did. Considering that the last two books I had to read for work were All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, Dark and Shallow Lies had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, I’m not sure it did. It’s fine, but it’s nothing to write home about.
What’s it about?
Grey was born in La Cachette, Louisiana, a town full of psychics and secrets, but after her mother’s death she lives with her father and returns to La Cachette only in the summertime. This summer is different, however; her best friend (and “twin flame”) Elora has disappeared and is presumed dead even though no body has been found. Grey, spurred on by what are possibly psychic visions of the night Elora disappeared, becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of Elora’s disappearance… and, with it, the drownings of two other children a decade before.
What’d I think?
I liked the setting. As I said above, I don’t personally care all that much about setting. I’m not a visual person and I’ve moved often enough that to me, one place is pretty much like another. Even with that in mind, I can see that Sain did a good job with La Cachette. The town’s closeness and culture absolutely inform the story, and give it a distinct feeling. The mysteries could not occur in the same way anywhere else, because they are tied inextricably to both the magic of the town and the tight-knit, claustrophobic community. The thin lines between truth and fiction further feed the confusion, and Sain’s brief inclusion of Cajun culture and Louisiana dialect are welcome.
I liked the pacing. I expected Dark and Shallow Lies to be a fantasy novel, but it reads like a thriller. I thought the magical powers were going to play a bigger part, and while they’re important they contribute more to the overall vibe than the plot. As Grey investigates Elora’s disappearance, she uncovers secret after unsettling secret, many of which ask her to reevaluate the things she knew best: the intentions of people she loves, the lore of her town, even her relationship with Elora. The story builds bigger with each chapter, and there’s never long between twists, meaning that this is a novel that keeps you reading. I wanted to read through this quickly because book club was looming and I hadn’t even started that book yet, but I was able to make it through this one in a day and a half because it is so fast-moving and exciting.
I didn’t like the obviousness of some of the false leads. This point doesn’t need much farther elaboration, but I’m going to give some anyway. Grey chases down some leads that I could tell immediately were red herrings. I always like when the author lays a track that the reader can follow if they’re paying attention, but this was a little too easy. One of the biggest *gasp here* moments was something I’d predicted in the first few chapters, and I was unshakably onto the most suspicious players long before Grey turned any attention towards them. I narrowly missed predicting the actual murderer, but I’ll get into that in the marked spoiler section.
I didn’t like how many characters there are. There’s some use of numerology in this novel, particularly as regards Grey’s same-aged summer friends. The number of them is important, so I understand why Sain included as many children as she did… but there are simply too many of them, and most of them don’t get beyond a single personality trait (ie. Mackey is a runner). A few of them also feel like they’re tokens (Sander, for instance, is gay and mute). It’s mostly these underdeveloped secondary characters who are Creole, POC, or who speak in dialect. Admittedly I did read this book very fast and maybe missed something, but I believe that all the major characters—Grey, Hart, Elora, Zale, Evie—are white.
I liked how Elora’s disappearance weaves into the murders from the town’s recent history. Current mysteries overlapping with cold cases and long-buried secrets always makes for a compelling read, and this is no exception.
Okay, I’m getting into spoiler territory now. Skip to the verdict if you’d like to remain unspoiled.
I liked that the novel mostly keeps Hart on the hook for his troubling behavior. As I implied above, I had my eye on Hart as the murderer from the start (in fact, I specifically told a friend very, very early in that the murderer was definitely going to be either Hart or Evie), and I accurately predicted his and Elora’s pseudo-incestuous relationship right off the bat. Sain introduced it a little too obviously by explaining that Grey saw Hart as a brother and then segueing immediately into her crush on him. Normal people don’t have crushes on their brothers; if you have a crush on someone, you either don’t see them as a brother or you have an upsetting relationship with your brother.
There’s something deeply unsettling about Hart even from the start, and he has a violent streak; he knocked Case’s tooth out because he assumed without evidence that Case was the killer. We hear over and over that he threatened to kill Evie’s abusive uncle, and it’s presented as a heroic act. On one hand, sure, it’s good that someone defended Evie. On the other hand, when investigating a murder, it makes sense to look into a person who has threatened murder and meant it. There are a lot of books who would take character like Hart—angsty, full of secrets, with a violent temper unleashed in moments of apparent chivalry—and present him as unambiguously romantic (or at least as a bad boy who just needs to be loved in order to be fixed). Dark and Shallow Lies doesn’t. Hart is a tragic figure, but he’s also stuck in a melancholy cage largely of his own making. He is guilty of hiding Elora’s body, which is the absolute wrong thing to do, even if you worry that you’ll be suspected.
That being said, I didn’t like that Hart wasn’t ultimately the killer. I was so excited when Zale was exonerated at the end and Wrynn pointed the finger at Hart. Was he a little too obvious? Sure, but he was definitely the most emotionally satisfying solution. The narrative had been building towards a romantic partner with a violent temper, and that’s what we had in Hart. Every single clue pointed right to Hart, from Sander’s étranger (Grey reiterates over and over that Hart is not the same boy she grew up with) to Hart’s constant jump-to-conclusions accusations. Even the narrative negative space indicated him; when Grey tries to learn the identity of Elora’s secret boyfriend, she questions every single boy except Hart. And, again, yeah. He’s supposedly Elora’s brother, but the incest hints were heavy in this book early on between Grey’s crush on Hart and the whole situation with Evie’s family. It’s fair that Grey didn’t think of this right off the bat, but the reader almost certainly will. Side note: what’s up with the whole adopted siblings do incest thing? I’m sick of toxic masculinity being forgiven because of a sad backstory, and I loved that Dark and Shallow Lies was ready to acknowledge a duality: Hart can be an empathetic boy who suffered traumas in childhood but who also grew up to perpetuate the cycle of violence.
The double-twist format is a fairly common narrative structure now (there’s a twist at the end that appears to be the final one because it satisfactorily answers all the lingering questions, but then there’s another quick twist right after that transforms everything again—usually, in my opinion, for the worse), and that’s what we get here. Evie and Grey being on the island in a hurricane with him was terrifying, and Hart being the murder hit all my boxes for what a satisfying conclusion would have to do. And then there’s that second twist with Evie. Like, sure, yes, it does also play into the jealous lover angle, but it just feels flat. There’s nothing objectively wrong with Evie being the murderer (like I said, I suspected her initially but largely discarded her because the emotional stakes didn’t feel high enough), but it’s simply not as emotionally satisfying as it being Hart. Also the whole I angrily grabbed her arm violently and then walked away and came back fifteen minutes later and she was dead just feels convenient, like it was slapped in at the last minute because Sain intended Hart as the killer but, when it came down to it, didn’t have the guts to go through with it.
I also didn’t really like that the rougarou storyline basically came to nothing beyond the metaphorical. I was really excited for a who’s-the-werewolf type witch-hunt storyline.
What’s the verdict?
Dark and Shallow Liesis a propulsive, atmospheric thriller with a light fantasy sprinkling that makes for an electric read. It flies by and is quite enjoyable. The mystery is interesting, and it’s very fun to try to put the puzzle pieces together alongside heroine Grey. My mid-range score comes from the fact that most of the false leads are too obvious, and I found the final conclusion/murderer reveal to be emotionally underwhelming. It’s a fun read, but ultimately a bit disappointing and I suspect, in the long run, unmemorable.
What’s next?
If you liked the family-full-of-psychics part of the book, try The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, which follows a girl who from a family of seers and psychics but who apparently has no such power herself.
If you liked the emotional turmoil that comes with Grey’s having argued with Elora before the latter’s disappearance, you should try All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue. It was also a BN YA monthly pick and has magic/witchy vibes.
Looking for YA mysteries that combine present-day mystery-solving with an old, unsolved case? Try A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson or Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson.
Read We Were Liars by E. Lockhart is you want another summer getaway with dark secrets and a family tragedy.
Looking for another mystery that puts its setting front and center? Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens makes its location a character in much the same way Dark and Shallow Lies does. It’s an adult contemporary novel, though, rather than YA fantasy.
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