Deeply buried secrets make for a disturbing family reunion in bestselling author Catherine McKenzie’s tantalizing novel of psychological suspense, named one of the Hottest Books of Summer by Goodreads.What happened to Amanda Holmes?Twenty years ago, she was found bludgeoned in a rowboat at the MacAllister family’s Camp Macaw. No one was ever charged with the crime.Now, after their parents’ sudden … crime.
Now, after their parents’ sudden deaths, the MacAllister siblings return to camp to read the will and decide what to do with the prime real estate the camp occupies. Ryan needs to sell. Margaux hasn’t made up her mind. Mary believes in leaving well enough alone. Kate and Liddie—the twins—have opposing views. And Sean Booth, the groundskeeper, just hopes he still has a home when all is said and done.
But it’s more complicated than a simple vote. The will stipulates that until they unravel the mystery of what happened to Amanda, they can’t settle the estate. Any one of them could have done it, and each one is holding a piece of the puzzle. Will they work together to finally discover the truth, or will their secrets finally tear the family apart?
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I love everything Catherine McKenzie writes and her latest was no exception.
I thought I had this one figured out…but I was surprised! Great writing!
If you’re interested in a book with childhood camp memories, jealousy, family secrets, unrequited love, and a mystery thrown in, then this is the book you need. Keeping 7 POVs separated and intriguing is a feat in itself, but to keep them fresh and sustainable for the whole book is fantastic. My ‘only’ complaint was the ‘timeline table’ had to be reduced in a font almost too small to read on my e-reader and each time I had to switch from readable font to the timeline font to see what had changed. Little annoyance, but tolerable.
While I was reading I became sure of only one thing: The victim was innocent. The mystery of who was guilty kept changing and when I thought I had figured it out, well, I didn’t. Great writing and I will look forward to reading more of Ms. McKenzie’s books. Thanks
Complex who done it.
The many various characters and the back and forth were a bit hard on this old lady brain. But boy, was the struggle Worth It!
The more I think about this book, the more I like it. This is a cleverly written and carefully nuanced book about a family with secrets, and one young woman who paid the price for the secrets.
The MacAllister family runs a summer camp, and 20 years ago, there was a terrible tragedy. Now, gathered together to memorialize their parents, the family needs to come to grips with the tragedy, testing their long-held beliefs about the tragedy. A lot is at stake, including the future of the camp.
This family struggles to understand what happened 20 years ago, but in deciphering the mystery, they come face to face with secrets that have been held close for many years – and many of those secrets were founded on something that wasn’t true at all.
The suspense level is high in this book, and while you know that the actual perpetrator is one of the people in the family, your suspicions constantly get proven wrong. This will keep you guessing to the end. There are several surprises in the book – and character development changes your mind more than once about a particular character.
Very well done!
#IllNeverTell #CatherineMcKenzie
The MacAllister siblings grew up at Camp Macaw, the typical summer camp with cabins that surround a lake, stories re-told over and over, sports, games and art workshops. What wasn’t typical was the summer that Amanda, a popular counselor and friend of the siblings, washed ashore dead in a rowboat. The police never found the killer. When the siblings’ parents die and the will is read, they discover that the only way they will inherit the camp is to solve the mystery of Amanda’s death. However, what once was an unsolvable murder mystery is now shrouded in closely guarded family secrets as well. None of these siblings is who they appear to be.
I’ve come to love domestic noir especially when it is done well and I’ll Never Tell does, in fact, handle this genre very well. There are six points of view – yes six – which could get muddled and confusing but McKenzie deftly moves back and forth between the chapters and personalities so that never once does the reader lose focus on who is who. The book also jumps back in time through Amanda’s point of view but this also adds to the dimension of the story rather than detracts. We are able to put into perspective the tales that the siblings are weaving from the actual facts as they happened. This does not, however, give the reader a clear cut view of the actual killer. There are so many twists and possibilities that I was clueless until the very end. Literally, it could have been any of them, or all.
I’ll Never Tell is a well written “whodunnit” and a great mystery, perfect for any season but even better for summer because of its setting. I highly recommend it and will be pursuing other McKenzie books for myself.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank You for a copy!
I’ll Never Tell is a “who-dun-it” domestic mystery that kept me guessing until the very end. Just when you think you figured out the killer, another loop is thrown in making for a captivating read!
Catherine McKenzie, as always, does a well written story, a great plot and an interesting assortment of dysfunctional characters that were so real, they somehow seemed like some of the people I know!
This is a must read book! 4 stars
What happened to Amanda Holmes?
What better setting could there be for summer reading than a book set in summer camp? In author Catherine McKenzie’s skillful hands, none.
Twenty years ago, Amanda was found in a rowboat at the MacAllister family’s Camp Macaw. She had been brutally beaten, but the crime stumped the police. No one was ever arrested or charged.
the elder MacAllisters have died tragically and suddenly, and now their children are returning to the place where they grew up. Their parents’ will must be read and the siblings need to decide what to do with the property now that their parents — primarily, their father — are no longer around to run it. With real estate prices soaring and son Ryan facing financial ruin following the malfeasance of his business partner, a sale is the option he plans to lobby for. He has a wife forcing the issue, as well as three daughters he adores and needs to provide for. Ryan was the attractive, charming boy that the girls at camp, including Amanda, developed crushes on. Margaux, her childless marriage in trouble, is on the fence, but Mary adamantly believes that Camp Macaw should continue providing unforgettable summers to campers. Twins Kate and Liddie have opinions as opposite as their personalities. Sean Booth has lived at the camp year-round for most of his life, employed by the MacAllisters as a groundskeeper. For him, the camp is home and, although he believes he has nothing to say about its fate, he is adamantly in favor of keeping it open. He has nowhere else to go, an emotional attachment to the camp, and was extremely loyal to the MacAllisters who provided him security in his troubled childhood.
Mr. MacAllister’s will provides a highly unorthodox stipulation. No disposition can be decided on until the siblings and Sean solve, at long last, determination who attacked Amanda.
Thus, the five siblings and Sean are thrown together at Camp Macaw, facing two challenges: Find out what really happened on that summer nights so many years ago and then reach a consensus as to the camp’s fate.
In any other writer’s hands, the ambitious premise of I’ll Never Tell might have been doomed. But McKenzie growth as a novelist has been on display with each successive book, including her most recent, The Good Liar, and I’ll Never Tell is a tautly-constructed, engrossing mystery told from the perspectives each sibling, along with Sean and Amanda, who describes exactly what happened to her on that fateful night. Additionally, two other characters loom large in the story: Mr. MacAllister and the camp itself. Despite the number of narrative threads, the story is easy to follow, thanks to the clarity of McKenzie’s writing, and the depth and development of her characters through insight into their thought processes and feelings. A map of the camp is provided, along with a chart showing the location of each character at specific times on the night in question also help.
Plausibly, each sibling, along with Sean, is a suspect. McKenzie provides them each with a believable motive, as well as the opportunity, to have been with Amanda. Moreover, each is keeping secrets from the others, for a variety of reasons, and motives to wanting to sell the camp or maintain it that are not immediately apparent to the others. McKenzie keeps the action moving at a swift pace, revealing the truth incrementally, until it is all revealed in a stunning climax to the story that is sure to take most readers by complete surprise.
I’ll Never Tell is a smartly conceived, expertly-executed thriller that may just be McKenzie’s best novel yet. (And a perfect summer beach read.)
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.
I’ll Never Tell was engrossing and suspenseful! It is a story full of drama and so many secrets. The MacAllister family of five children spent every summer at their family’s summer camp. But twenty years ago, something terrible happened at camp that changed their lives forever. When their parents pass away, they are forced to face what happened and try to piece together what really happened that long ago summer.
The author did a good job of giving us characters we can relate to and describing places and events that we can relate to. This was a who done it that you might think you’ve figured out, but you haven’t. You don’t know who it was until the end and you don’t figure it out ahead of time. I like that in a book.
This book was very easy to read and I enjoyed it from the beginning to the end.
I really enjoyed this book! It had so many different ways it could have gone and I had never dreamt the ending that you wrote. Great job, thanks for this awesome book!
First time in reading this author she captures me with a gripping tale. It just so happens intrigue starts it but then you are taken down another path that spins a web around you. Then the two come together with it being a huge puzzle that have pieces that you watch it come together with delicious suspense and mystery to feed you along the way. Thanks to how delightful this was to unravel if given the chance would read this author again.
I’ve been reading Catherine McKenzie’s novels for years and I have always marveled at how unique each story is. I eagerly look forward to her next novel as soon as I finish her last. I was especially looking forward to I’ll Never Tell after absolutely loving The Good Liar last year. Could her new one live up to her last (which was an instant bestseller, btw)? The short answer is: hell, yes.
This isn’t the first novel that features a dysfunctional family and a surprise in a will, and it won’t be the last. But it’s definitely going to be one that sticks with me for awhile. The MacAllisters are likeable enough (way more palatable than some families), they’re just a bit messed up. And who isn’t? It’s hard to say if they really deserved to be dealing with their father’s bizarre conditions even though it’s pretty clear one of them is a murderer.
Speaking of murder and whodunnit – I had no idea. Every time the perspective changed with a new chapter (not as jarring as you might think), I changed my mind. Every sibling had motive and opportunity, though a few of them were immediately ruled out. Or were they? Yep. It’s a twisted mystery and I loved it.
There’s one thing that’s been niggling at me since I finished the novel and it has to do with some choices Pete MacAllister made. I can’t really say anything more because it’s a hell of a spoiler if I do but his reasoning never made clear (not for the surprise in the will, that part was pretty clear). I guess I’m always just looking for more of an “everything wrapped up in a bow” situation than McKenzie was going for, especially for a character who is dead, but I feel like there’s way more to him and his motivations than we got to see.
I loved that this books was set at a summer camp. I never went to overnight camp growing up so I don’t have the kinds of memories that the campers at Macaw would but McKenzie does have that experience and, through that background and her great writing, I was able to understand what it was like and why the characters may have acted the way they did.
Also, I always thought the cover was so well suited to this novel – and I was very happy that McKenzie wasn’t given an obviously feminine cover – but it wasn’t until I inserted it into my blog review that I realized how perfect (and perfectly creepy) it really is.
I’ll Never Tell is an amazing follow up to Catherine McKenzie’s success with The Good Liar. It’s an intriguing, complex, twisted story that she tells so, so well. I may have started reading her books because they were contemporary, fun, and relateable but I’m so happy with the direction she’s taken because she’s so good at writing thrillers. Pick this one up for your summer vacation!
Who wouldn’t want their parents to own a summer camp on a lake? Apparently the Macaws. After their parents sudden death, they are told to keep it open one more year and then meet to hear what’s next. The family is divided on what they want to be done with it, and that is before the will, and its strange conditions, is read.
It’s not just the family to consider. Sean has lived there most of his life and wants to stay. And there is Amanda on everyone’s mind. Who killed Amanda 20 years ago and left her in a boat? Dad had his ideas. Was he right?
This was a fun, summer read. There were parts in which the family drama and remembering seemed irrelevant and I just wanted to get back to the present day story, but I still read it in two sittings. I’d recommend for anyone who likes a little mystery.
A fantastic, thrilling, suspenseful novel with twists and turns to leave you on edge! Intense and well plotted! I loved it!
Catherine McKenzie’s books always contain some sort of mystery in the center of them. I’LL NEVER TELL really IS a mystery, centered around what happened to one teen camper decades ago, at a camp run by a very dysfunctional family.
Now, twenty years later, the mystery has to be solved, once and for all. And as with any situation where deeply buried secrets get dug up, not everyone wants the truth to be told.
I’LL NEVER TELL is an enjoyable read and an intriguing mystery. It did not make me nostalgic for summer camp though!
A mystery that takes place in a summer camp–as a life-long camp person, this book had me at hello. Kept me guessing all along.
3.5 rounded up to 4.
Love books that take place in summer camp. In present day, the five McAllister children along with a long time camp employee reunite at the family camp to hold a memorial service for their departed parents and for the reading of the father’s will. What they believe will be a simple family fight over whether to keep or sell the camp becomes more complicated when it is revealed that the son was believed by the father to be responsible for a heinous crime towards a camper back in 1998. Told from the perspective of each of the characters in the present and the past, this mystery of who done it keeps you guessing as family secrets and lies are revealed. I received an ARC from a Goodreads giveaway.
As always, Catherine McKenzie brings us an excellent mystery filled with family and secrets and life. Each of her novels evolves from an insular world of mystery and personalities that shift with the winds of fact and time. Set in the wilds of Canada, I’ll Never Tell features the MacAllister children – Margaux the competent; quiet, horse-loving Mary who considers herself the forgotten child; livewire identical twins Kate and Liddie of the conflicting, mirrored personalities; and self-indulgent handsome son Ryan, along with their contemporary returning camp-staffers Sean Booth and Amanda Bean.
The mystery actually takes place on July 22, 1998, when the seven staffers are in their teens. They are the third generation to run the summer camp, Camp Mccaw, which was founded and built up by their Grandfather MacAllister, Pete’s father. During summer camp of 1998, Amanda is found crumpled in the bottom of a boat on Secret Beach, struck down with an oar. There is never enough evidence for the police to make an arrest though Ryan and Sean are initially considered persons of interest. The timeline is ambiguous and marred with secrets not shared with anyone by the kids. The following summer there is an accident with a vehicle being used by Ryan, where female camp staffer Stacy is killed. Again, Ryan is cleared by the skin of his teeth. Strike Two.
We return to contemporary time, twenty years later. The MacAllister parents, Ingrid and Pete, are killed in a train wreck during the winter on the first vacation they have taken in years. Pete was a very micromanaging man, who has to know everything about everybody. The extent of his sins of invasion come to light after his death.
Pete’s father left him Camp Mccaw and the priceless 200 riverfront acres it entailed with the stipulation that it could not be sold for any reason during Pete’s lifetime, a restriction that kept him frustrated his whole life. Ingrid, though the mother of five, was not maternal nor personally involved with her children. Her unemotional handling of the children coupled with Pete’s parsimony and need for complete command of every situation made the children feel like they were just around to man the camp and entertain themselves at school in Montreal in the winter. Sean, orphaned as a child, spends all year at the camp handling maintenance and security, even after Pete and Ingrid moved to the camp full time.
The MacAllister children, one at a time, were weaned off into city life as they finished high school and began college or career in the city, with the exception of twin Kate, who managed the camp for her parents until her 27th birthday, when her father announced that she wasn’t emotionally strong enough to actually manage the camp in their absence. And Mary, who bought her own small farm near Camp Mccaw, where she lives her quiet life, houses her horse Cinnamon, and winters the horses of the camp.
Pete’s will is ambiguous, and their old family lawyer, Swift, is reluctant to share it with the children. Pete’s first demand was that the camp must be run through the summer following his death. He leaves everything to wife Ingrid, but because they die together, the land will go to the children. With many stipulations. They are all to gather at the camp on Labor Day weekend after the closing of summer camp for a memorial including all the old repeat campers, that to be followed by the complete reading of the will. And all six of the third generation of Camp Mccaw come with different expectations, conflicting needs, long hidden secrets. Though not one of them expects the monkey wrench father Pete tosses into the mix. Even from the grave, he must control the family and the camp.
I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Catherine McKenzie, and Lake Union Publishing. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this mystery of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work.
Emotional Drama Built on Exposing a Web of Lies and Misperceptions
I’ll Never Tell finds the five MacAllister siblings (Margaux, Ryan, Mary, Kate, and Liddie) and a groundskeeper (Sean Booth) trying to solve a 20-year-old, cold case – the bludgeoning of Amanda Holmes on the grounds of the family’s camp, Camp Macaw. Why? Because their father’s will stipulated that until they unravel the mystery of what happened to Amanda, they can’t settle the estate. That sentence alone should tell you one of the concerns I have about this book – the plot is contrived. What kind of man would saddle his five children with solving a case that the police couldn’t? What kind of man would task his children with something he never did when he was alive? Of course, every author gets one gimme and this could be it, except the pattern repeats quite often. For example, in a backstory, Ryan takes the blame for “killing” a young woman when, in fact, it was an accident. There is no blame to be taken, no one to protect in an accident, and so, the whole scene ends up feeling convenient – a way for the author to increase drama and little more.
But even with the contrived feel of the main plot and many of the scenes, it’s easy to see why the book is popular – the twists and character development. The latter is facilitated by the chapters’ different points of view. Each one takes the perspective of one of the seven figures mentioned above. Yes, there are seven different POVs. And from them, we learn that these people are not a particularly likable bunch. They are the kind who would fake a bad phone connection rather than have an uncomfortable conversation with a significant other (to pick one simple example). But while they have largely withdrawn from each other and in some cases, from the world, they have steadfastly hidden what they believe are secrets about Amanda to protect one another. Or maybe that’s why they’ve withdrawn?
Twists in the story are the second driver of this tale and most revolve around omissions or lies about the assault on Amanda. But the author takes it a step further because often the lies are only hiding a misperception of events rather than the truth. So, a secret revealed means little until its verified and you’re left guessing what really happened until the next secret, and so on. Unfortunately, even an excellent writing hook can be overused and this one is. I found myself fascinated by how the author would spin each incident but at the same time, numbed to the drama. And until you’re on the last page, why give any reveal much credence?
Overall, the plot is contrived and the drama somewhat overplayed, but character development and the twists make I’ll Never Tell a worthwhile read.
I would like to thank NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing, and Catherine McKenzie for the digital ARC I received. I elected to write a review.
Five siblings reliving their experience at camp. The camp was owned by their parents who are now deceased and they reunite there for the reading of the will. The story reveals they’re adventures and their secrets.