Noone Keeps A Secret by Denise Brown

=No One Keeps a Secret by Denise Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 4 days

Pages - 288

Publisher - Hashtag Press

Source - ARC

Blurb from Goodreads

When three teens track down a missing chihuahua to an abandoned theme park, they stumble upon a chilling discovery: a corpse, strangled by his own camera strap. The victim was meant to be 400 miles away in London, where he'd promised a lot of people a lot of money. But every one of them has a solid alibi. As Haigh, Cherry, and Sunrise get pulled into the murder investigation, they uncover mafia connections, a still-operating ghost train, and gossiping grannies, revealing their quiet village is far more dangerous than they ever imagined.


My Review

Young adult, mystery, the main characters are Haigh and Cherry, teens, told in first person point of view. Haigh's mum is dating Oz, a not very nice guy at all, the duo Haigh and Cherry become a trio when they meet Sunrise. The three end up meeting whilst chasing down a temperamental bitey chihuhua and bond over the trauma of finding a dead body, that of Oz and things go from there. Haigh has ADHD so we see snippets of that in different situations whilst trying to investigate what happened and be "the man of the house".

So there is a fair bit to unpeel in this, friendship, teen attraction, murder, investigation like the kids are on the case a bit like maybe the secret seven or something. It is super busy and sometimes, some of the elements like the ADHD could have been either much more in depth or just left off. I think people will be happy to see more representation absolutely but whilst we get glimpses and moments of how Haigh lives with it they are fleeting. Like maybe if he was not a main character? Also the characters are sixteen but come across so much younger in a lot of it. So it was a bit mixed for me at times.

The adults/secrets part I did like and wanted to know all of what Oz's chat was, I feel so much was touched on or hinted at but then didn't give us as much as I would have liked. If they book was chunkier and we got more backstory and depth I think I would have liked it a lot more. I also felt some things came so left of field and I do love when an author shocks you and or pulls the rug but, I don't know instead of ooooh I was a bit more oh, wait hang on. If that makes sense? I liked it, I didn't love it. Small village, secrets, murder, teen protagonists, kid working through some big developments/shocks with his friends and living with ADHD. It was different, 3/5, this was my first time reading her, I would read her again if I come across the book(s).

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