What secrets lurk in the Hanging Woods?

PLOT SUMMARY:

On the night of the Summer Solstice in 1999, nine-year-old Roisin O’Halloran marched into the Hanging Woods, the mysterious copse that had inspired fear in decades of children in the small Irish town of Bannakilduf. She was never seen again.

Twenty years later, two women are drawn together to discover the truth of what happened to Roisin: Roisin’s older sister Deedee, a rookie cop who’s barely hanging on to the appearance of keeping it all together, and Roisin’s childhood best friend Caitlin, a petty criminal who was the last person to see the young girl before she disappeared, now returned to her hometown after her mother’s death.

With old wounds made fresh after decades of mistrust, Caitlin and Deedee must reckon with their shadowy pasts, the monsters that still haunt them, and the role they each may have played in Roisin’s disappearance. The secrets of that long-ago summer rise to the surface, and they will expose the truth that many in the small town are desperate to keep buried.

The siren of the Hanging Woods rings out once more. After all, nothing can stay hidden forever.

GRADE: B+

REVIEW:

This story leans more into emotional mystery than edge-of-your-seat thriller, exploring grief, memory, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.

Years ago, Roisin vanished without a trace. The last person to see her was her friend Caitlin. In the aftermath, Caitlin’s mother takes her away to London, putting distance between them and the whispers back home in Ireland. Caitlin stays away for years—until her mother’s sudden death pulls her back.

Now, Roisin’s older sister Deedee is a police officer, still carrying the weight of her sister’s disappearance. She’s determined to uncover the truth, no matter how much time has passed. When Caitlin returns, the two women are forced to confront each other—and the silence, suspicion, and unresolved pain that’s lingered for years.

I can already see some readers finding both Caitlin and Deedee difficult to like—and that’s fair. But for me, their flaws made the story feel more real rather than less enjoyable. The mystery unfolds at a steady pace, and the way everything comes together in the end is genuinely satisfying.

If you’re looking for a fast-paced, high-stakes thriller, this might not fully deliver. But if you enjoy character-driven mysteries with emotional depth, Darkrooms is definitely worth picking up.

*Thank you so much to NetGalley & William Morrow for the audiobook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

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