Happy Monday Everyone. Today I’m really excited to kicking off the blog tour for Faye Bird’s latest YA thriller, My Secret Lies With You! It’s amazing and it’s certainly this summer’s top YA thriller of the year. You can read it one sitting like me. My full review will be up later this week. I’ve met Faye years ago when I first started as a librarian, and I bought her books at the event there and I couldn’t put them down. So I would highly recommend Faye’s book if you love Karen McManus and most recently Holly Jackson.

The theme for Faye’s blog tour is her favourite mysteries, and today she is starting off with Twin Peaks and Riverdale!!! But before that here is a little bit more about Faye’s newest book.

Three close friends. Two unforgettable summers. One girl's darkest secret.

Alys appeared last summer, and then she vanished without a trace. Cait's new in town and she needs to know the truth: Who is Alys?

"A tantalizing story of summer, secrets and deep unease" - Sue Wallman, author of Lying About Last Summer

Faye’s Favourite Mysteries Blogger Tour – Twin Peaks and Riverdale.

I watched this TV series when I was 18. It was co-written and directed by David Lynch. It had, and still has, a cult like following. It was certainly like nothing I’d ever seen before. In truth I think it was like nothing television had ever seen before at the time. Who
killed Lara Palmer? This is what we all watched this show for. This is what we needed to know. However around this central mystery was a collection of disparate characters in an isolated logging town called Twin Peaks who surprised and captivated us while the central mystery unfolded. Here were tortured teenagers, complex, often guilty adults, an entirely enigmatic detective in FBI Agent Dale Cooper (“damn fine coffee” always with a slice of cherry pie) and random oddball characters who walked among them all like the Lady with the Log. And yes, she literally was a lady who walked around carrying a log. The characters and the setting were so odd they were almost funny and yet there was nothing funny about this show. It was dark, troubling, strange and thrilling. I remember being frightened by it. The conclusion to Season 2 was terrifying.  As Agent Dale Cooper says in the show – “I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.”

It reminds me how oddity can create a great atmosphere for a mystery. If we aren’t quite sure what world we are in, if the rules are slightly different and they sometimes change, then the layers of a mystery can be heightened to brilliant effect. So long as we are with the characters we’ll be hooked in even more. Setting is obviously also a huge part of this series – the town of Twin Peaks is as much of a character as the people who live there. Riverdale, which is currently in its third season on Netflix, has a huge fan base and owes much of its stylistic quirkiness to Twin Peaks. It was developed from the Archie comics, but like Twin Peaks, the town of Riverdale sets the tone and mood for the show with a cast of characters and a colour palate that absolutely reflects the show’s comic book origins, but where the rules are slightly different and almost anything can and does happen. Interestingly Riverdale’s similarities to Twin Peaks are no real secret to fans of both shows and they even share a cast member in Madchen Amick who played teen Shelly Johnson in Twin Peaks and now plays Alice Cooper, mother to Betty in Riverdale. Twin Peaks has recently been brought back to life – Twin Peaks, The Return – but I have to admit I haven’t watched the show. I want to leave the original where it was in my memory aged 18 when I was rather smitten by Agent Dale Cooper and gripped enough to cancel all my other plans in order to stay in each week and find out exactly who killed Laura Palmer.

There you have it. I admit I haven’t watched either – I know even Riverdale, which so many people seem to enjoy and I always love a good setting and storyline. My Secret Lies With You in out on Thursday, but if you’re lucky there are early copies in WH Smith for their YA Book club.  

Don’t forget to come back on Wednesday for my review of this brilliant new book from Faye. 

About Faye Bird

Faye Bird lives in London with her family. She studied Philosophy and Literature at Warwick University and always wanted to be a writer, but wasn’t brave enough initially to try. In 2012, she decided to be brave and commit seriously to her writing.

My Secret Lies With You is Faye’s third novel for young adults. When she is not writing she works in a primary school supporting children with their reading.

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Don’t forget follow along the blog this week. Tomorrow will be The Writing Greyhound, so check out Faye’s next favourite mystery.