What Never Happened by Rachel Howzell Hall

 Rating: ★★★★☆

Dates Read: 1/5/23-1/7/23

    Colette "Coco" Weber is returning home to her Catalina Island home, where she survived a deadly home invasion twenty years earlier. All Coco wants is to be with her aunt Gwen, to escape her ex, and to get back to what she does best: writing obituaries. Her college best friend, Maddy, owns the local paper and has a job that will keep Coco busy, considering how many elderly people are dying on the island. As Coco works through these obituaries and learns more about these deaths, she quickly realizes that they're very similar, and not natural. In the mail, Coco finds a sinister threat: her own death obituary. The more Coco connects the crimes of a serial killer to her family tragedy, the more she fears the secrets on Catalina Island are too deep to survive. Somebody's watching her, and they're hell-bent on putting her past to rest.

    I was going through a significant reading slump until I received approval for this ARC. However, once I finished reading this book, it completely pulled me out of that slump. I gave this book a rating of 4/5 stars primarily because I had a strong intuition early on about how the twist would unfold. I won't go into detail to prevent spoilers. Despite having that gut feeling, I found myself continuously shifting between characters as I couldn't make up my mind about who I believed to be the antagonist.

    Although I had a solid idea at the beginning, I was still shocked by the twist. I won't go into specifics to avoid spoiling it. Hall skillfully crafted the suspense, and I absolutely adored Coco's character. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to fans of thrillers and mysteries. I eagerly await July's arrival so I can purchase a physical copy for my collection. My next mission is to read Hall's other books!

Big thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!