We Lie Here: A Return Home Leads to Toxic Family Secrets

Nominated for the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Mystery/Thriller, Rachel Howzell Hall’s We Lie Here (Thomas & Mercer) is the ultimate in twisty family secrets, murders, long standing grudges, and buried–both literally and figuratively–truths.

In this book, Hall, the New York Times bestselling author of And Now She’s Gone and These Toxic Things, tells the story of Yara Gibson, a L.A. screenwriter who returns to the small desert town of La Paz to help plan a family event. Yara has a lot of reservations about the trip and as her time at home progresses she becomes even more wary of what’s going on below the surface of what seems like a typical middle class family. She’s contacted by a woman claiming to be her cousin Felicia who leaves Yara a key to a remote lakeside cabin. Felicia has secrets to reveal about the family and the two agree to meet but then Fellicia’s body is discovered, setting Yara off on a quest to uncover what the family has spent years to hide.

But there’s more going on as well. Files in the basement of the cabin refer back to a tragedy that happened years ago. And as she investigates her family’s past and how it impacts her, Yara becomes concerned she’s losing her focus when things go missing including the medicine necessary to keep her from having an asthma attack. Or is there something more insidious going on?

Hall has again written a tightly woven mystery, one that keeps a reader in their seat, turning the pages to find out how it ends. Also available on CD and Audible.