Review: You Will Pay by Lisa Jackson

In a fast-paced, brilliantly twisted novel of suspense from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jackson, the deadly secrets of a long-ago summer stir to life once more. 

It starts as a prank—a way to blow off steam after a long summer at Camp Horseshoe. Among the teen counselors, tensions and hormones are running high. No wonder the others agree when Jo-Beth Chancellor suggests they scare Monica O’Neal a little….or a lot. Monica has it coming, and no one will really get hurt. What could go wrong?

Everything.

Twenty years later, Lucas Dalton, a senior detective with the sheriff’s department, is investigating the discovery of human remains in a cavern at what used to be Camp Horseshoe. Lucas knows the spot well. His father, a preacher, ran the camp, and Lucas worked there that infamous summer when two girls went missing. One is believed to have been killed by a convict on the loose. Monica O’Neal is thought to have drowned and been washed out to sea.

Lucas knows he should step down from such a personal case. He’s already jeopardized his career by removing evidence of his involvement. But maybe it’s time to uncover the whole truth at last. That’s why five former female counselors are coming back to the small Oregon town—among them, Bernadette Warden, the woman Lucas has never forgotten. Each one knows something about that terrible night. Each promised not to tell. And as they reunite, a new horror unfolds. First come notes containing a personal memento and a simple, terrifying message: You will pay. Then, the murders begin.

It started years ago. But it will end here—as a web of lust, greed, and betrayal is untangled to reveal a killer waiting to enact the perfect revenge.

Kindle Edition, 416 pages

Expected publication: May 30th 2017 by Kensington 

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Kristine's Thoughts:

** I received an advanced readers copy from Kensington via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!**

You Will Pay tells the story of a summer at Camp Horseshoe. There were a bunch of live in teenage counsellors with secrets, that hooked up and played pranks but it was also the summer that two of the girls disappeared as well as a camp hand and an escaped convict. Flash forward twenty years with the discovery of a skull and some bones near the abandoned camp and the mystery began to unravel.

This book was told from multiple perspectives in the present and going back to that awful summer. In theory, this was an amazing way to let the story unfold. In fact, a favourite of mine. I love when a story weaves between past and present and is told from multiple points of view.

But...

There were way too many characters to keep track of and I found it distracted me from the story. I spent too much time trying to keep them all straight in order for things to make sense. In fact, it took me until almost the half way point to have all the characters figured out. It was just way too busy. Also, there were far too many pregnancies in this book. Whether they were in the past or present it was just too much. It took away from any impact that should have been there, particularly in the past.

In theory, this had the potential to be a great story. I really wanted to love it. It had so many things that I love in a good book. Unfortunately it was just too busy for my liking and if I'm being completely honest, the mystery was a little anti-climatic and pretty predictable. The same concept but with only one missing girl and few less councelors would have simplified it and made it much more enjoyable.

 About the Author

Lisa Jackson is the number-one New York Times bestselling author of more than 85 novels, including Afraid to Die, Tell Me, You Don’t Want to Know, Running Scared, Without Mercy, Malice, and Shiver.  She is also the co-author of the Colony Series, co-written with her sister, Nancy Bush. There are over 20 million copies of Lisa Jackson’s books in print in twenty languages. 

Before she became a nationally bestselling author, Lisa Jackson was a mother struggling to keep food on the table by writing novels, hoping against hope that someone would pay her for them. Today, neck deep in murder, her books appear on The New York Times, the USA Today, and the Publishers Weekly national bestseller lists.

With over thirty bestsellers to her name, Lisa Jackson is a master of taking readers to the edge of sanity – and back – in novels that buzz with dangerous secrets and deadly passions.  She continues to be fascinated by the minds and motives of both her killers and their pursuers—the personal, the professional and downright twisted.  As she builds the puzzle of relationships, actions, clues, lies and personal histories that haunt her protagonists, she must also confront the fear and terror faced by her victims, and the harsh and enduring truth that, in the real world, terror and madness touch far too many lives and families.   

Connect with Lisa

Website/Twitter/Goodreads