Bumpy Oak Books

**spoiler alert** **I was provided an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**

3 stars

Kirsten Miller presents a YA mystery thriller in Don’t Tell a Soul. Readers follow Bram, a troubled girl going to live with her uncle in the country after something has happened to make her leave Manhattan. Bram soon follows that there are rumors about her uncle’s manor being haunted, and begins to experience things that seem to be unexplainable. Of course, that just means Bram has to seek an explanation.

Miller’s writing is readable and fast-paced, with a good build. Unfortunately, I never really got hooked, which left me a bit middle-of-the-road. It was interesting learning about all the small town rumors and secrets, and I felt that Miller did well at intertwining them. Everything established followed good logic and solid explanations, which is great, but contributed heavily to me finding the ending disappointing. I really wanted a paranormal thriller, and didn’t find that here.

In addition, the characters were established, but I really wasn’t invested in any of them. I never felt the stakes were high enough to be truly thrilling, and didn’t particularly have enough attachment to care about the characters even if the stakes had been high.

That being said, I feel like this book would be great for its target audience of young adult, possibly folks new to the thriller genre, or folks interested in thrillers but don’t actually want to feel scared. As an adult who knows their way around a thriller or two, the book came across as well-written but a little lackluster.

I do look forward to seeing what else Kirsten Miller comes out with in the future, and would be interested in potentially reading other works.