And if she can’t find a way out of Harrow Lake, they might just be the death of her. The more Lola discovers about the town, the more terrifying it becomes. The locals are weirdly obsessed with the film that put their town on the map–and there are strange disappearances, which the police seem determined to explain away.Īnd there’s someone–or something–stalking her every move. Ellis has whet my appetite for more creepy stories and I’ll be sure to check out her other work too.Lola Nox is the daughter of a celebrated horror filmmaker–she thinks nothing can scare her.īut when her father is brutally attacked in their New York apartment, she’s quickly packed off to live with a grandmother she’s never met in Harrow Lake, the eerie town where her father’s most iconic horror movie was shot. It was fun, fast-paced and intriguing, yet it didn’t feel clichéd or over-done.

She throws in tidbits of information that will have you trying to beat Ava to solving the murders, whilst also throwing you off the scent just enough to maintain an element of surprise throughout.Īs a first foray into reading thrillers, I found Wicked Little Deeds to be a great start. Nevertheless, Ellis does an incredible job at keeping the reader engaged. I would have loved to get to know Daphne, Carla and Nic a bit more. As a result, we hear about characters that seem fascinating, yet aren’t always fully fleshed out.

There are a number of characters important to this story, yet Ava is, of course, the main focus. As students at her school begin to turn up dead, and evidence points towards Ava, she becomes determined to get to the bottom of things. Her nightmares appear to come to life when Sadie, a terrifying urban legend surrounding her family’s manor home, starts appearing to her. Our story follows Ava, a soon-to-be eighteen-year-old who is still dealing with the trauma of being involved in an awful accident one year ago. She weaves together a story full of ghosts, murder, mystery and teenage angst that had me desperate to read on. But Kat Ellis is, in my opinion, more successful. Wicked Little Deeds is described as being reminiscent of Riverdale, and the comparison sticks. Whatever secrets Burden Falls is hiding, there’s a killer on the loose, and they have a vendetta against the Thorns… Ava Thorn knows this well - since the horrific accident she witnessed a year ago, she’s been plagued by nightmares.īut when someone close to her is brutally murdered and Ava is the primary suspect, she starts to wonder if the legends surrounding the town are more fact than fiction. As someone who is quite new to the thriller genre in general, Wicked Little Deeds felt like the perfect introduction to reading novels with this theme.įrom its creepy town mascot to the story of its cursed waterfall, Burden Falls is a small town dripping with superstition.

Kat ellis books