Book Tour: The Beach Party by Amy Sheppard

The Beach Party by Amy Sheppard
Published by Bookouture on 30/08/22
Narrator: Amalia Vitale
Length: 9 hrs 12 mins
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 301
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We were all at the party. Which of us wanted her dead?

As the smoke from the bonfire spirals into the night sky and the cool drinks slip down our throats, none of us can take our eyes off Lacey. She dances in the dunes, her long golden hair damp from her late-night swim, her smile dazzling, her blue eyes closed.

Everyone who is close to Lacey sits by the smoky fire. Her adoring boyfriend, who holds onto her, perhaps a little too tightly. Her little sister, always in Lacey's shadow, sifting fine soft sand through her fingers, never taking her eyes off Lacey. And me. Sad and full of rage, after an argument forced the man I love to leave the party early.

When the fire burns out, we stumble away from the beach, along the cliff path - faces burned by the wind, hearts full of secrets. But Lacey never makes it home. The next morning, her body is found in the sand dunes, a heart-shaped locket missing from around her neck.

Who would have thought our beach party could end the way it did? Close friends gathered on the last night of a long hot summer - which one of us could have killed the girl everybody loved?

I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Having grown up in a small seaside town in NW England I can see the parallels between my home town and Pengully. Small towns can feel claustrophobic when you’re a teenager and as Sheppard described the different residents I could easily match them to people that I knew.

I really liked the idea of using a podcast as the reason for looking into the case again. I’ve seen this done a few times now but I like the idea that people will talk more to others who they know than to the police.

Usually with these types of books I find it quite easy to figure out who was responsible, that didn’t happen here, I was led on a few wild goose chases and only actually figured it out a couple of pages before it was announced. I’m not sure I could have taken the same actions as Katie did at the end though – could you? I’m really interested for people’s feedback on this after reading it!!

My only niggle about this book was there was a lot of obsessing over relationships and sex and a lot of drinking. It was like they couldn’t go a day without opening a bottle of wine. Now, in fairness, at their age I was exactly the same so I think this will appeal more to people in their late teens and early twenties, which in itself is a bonus as I don’t seem to have seen a lot of NA thrillers out there.

If you’ve read A Good Girls Guide to Murder then this is very similar. We have the podcast, the murder of a teenager, the suicide of her boyfriend causing the case to be closed.

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