A Literary Apothecary

Thank you to NetGalley and Zando for this Advance Reader Copy!

I’ve been a bit out of my thriller era for a while. I just read a whole bunch of disappointing thrillers back-to-back-to-back, but Nasty Little Secrets was a fantastic return to form. With interesting characters, a strong driving mystery, and twists that had me gasping out loud, I had a great time reading this novel.

Rose Dearling is used to having a bad reputation. She and her family became the pariahs of their small town when, ten years ago, her brother Will was arrested and convicted of killing his high school sweetheart, Alexandria Hopely. Rose has always believed in Will’s innocence, and to support him she wrote and published a best-selling novel about the case. The world is outraged that the convicted killer’s sister is profiting off his murder, and worse than that, tarnishing Alex’s name and family by accusing Alex’s own father of being the killer. All Rose cares about is finding the real killer and supporting Will in his appeals.

Then, Rose gets a call that her sixteen-year-old sister Hazel has gone missing. She immediately flies back from Manhattan to her hometown to help with the search, and she discovers that Hazel was looking into the events surrounding Alex’s murder. Could Hazel have stumbled across a break in the case that put her in danger? If Will really is innocent, then the real killer has been free for all these years, and they might do anything to protect their secret.

Interesting Characters & Character Relationships

The characters in this novel and their relationships with each other were definitely a high point. I liked Rose Dearling quite a bit, though to be completely honest I could see a lot of people absolutely hating her. Hanks makes a choice at the beginning of the novel that I think makes it very difficult to get on board with following Rose as a protagonist. Rose couldn’t claim that her book was a true, nonfiction version of the events before and after the death of Alex Hopely to avoid being sued, so instead she wrote a “fictionalized” version of that summer. A fiction book has to reveal the killer, and Rose wasn’t about to make her brother look more guilty. She blames the death on Alex’s own father, and it’s revealed that he took his own life after the book’s publication. I don’t think any of this is in spoiler territory because the reader is told this information within the first couple of chapters.

Portraying Rose as responsible for an “innocent” man’s suicide after the murder of his daughter makes her look monstrous, and it makes her so much harder to root for. The novel knows this, and Rose almost wraps herself in this idea of her being a heartless bitch. As the rest of the story unfolds, I believe that some of that unlikability is alleviated, but I do wonder if it creates too much of a rift between reader and character right at the beginning of the story.

Beyond that, I like that Rose is intelligent. Her deductive reasoning is sound for the most part, and she has a way of getting people to talk, even when they don’t necessarily want to. Rose makes some rash decisions that could be dangerous for her, but her motivations are good. She’s incredibly stubborn in her support of Will, but she firmly believes that she is correct about his innocence. It makes for an interesting dynamic with the rest of her family, who have all accepted Will’s guilt and distanced themselves from him.

Will Dearling is the brother who was convicted of murdering Alexandria Hopely, and I think that he could’ve had a more prominent role in the story. He’s only ever portrayed as this perfect golden boy who would never have done anything to harm Alex, and while I don’t hate that, it does make his character a bit less interesting. Rose never really grapples with the idea that her brother could’ve actually committed the crime, and everything the reader sees from him in the “past” timeline supports the idea that he’s this perfect guy. Even when faced with serious obstacles in the relationship between him and Alex, Will only ever reacts extremely calmly.

I understand that he can’t really have a major role in the current timeline because he’s in prison. He obviously can’t be out looking for Hazel, and he can’t have been the one to do anything to her. Despite this, the author does still manage to bring him into the mystery a bit, and I think that took real skill. I also quite liked that Will is lying to Rose, despite all the help she’s given him. It hints at a darker side to him that I wish was explored a little bit further.

Tommy Dearling is the people-pleasing middle child, brother. I liked him a lot, and I liked his relationship with Rose. He seems to have complicated feelings about Will’s conviction, though he never goes so far as to agree to his innocence or guilt. He doesn’t want to argue about it, getting in between Rose and his parents; he only wants to be there for his family. He’s the one who lives a normal life with a wife who loves him and two young children. Tommy does support Rose emotionally, and they seemed to be very close growing up. He’s also extremely close with Hazel, both in the present and the past, and he’s the most distraught over her disappearance.

Hazel Dearling is missing for most of the story. Her disappearance is the catalyst for the current mystery, and in the past timeline, she was only four years old. It does mean that the reader doesn’t get to know her very well, but it ties into how Rose is investigating. Rose doesn’t know very much about Hazel’s life, so neither does the reader. It works well enough, and we get to learn about Hazel at the same time as Rose through Hazel’s investigation. While I appreciate the idea that Hazel is a fresh pair of eyes on Alex’s murder case, due to her age at the time, I found it hard to believe at times that she was discovering new information in Rose’s book. It’s a beset-seller, and no one has connected these dots before? A bit unbelievable. It would be different if Hazel had access to some of Rose’s notes or research that was not published before. Hazel IS interviewing people around the town and is discovering new information through that method, but still.

Alexandria Hopely reminded me a bit of Alison DiLaurentis from Pretty Little Liars, and I mean that in a positive way. The reader has very little idea of who she is at the start of the story, but as more and more of the summer she died was revealed, it became clear that more and more people could’ve had reasons to kill Alex. The narrative surrounding her at the time of her murder was an interesting layer to the story. No one wanted to say a bad word about her after her death, including Will, so no one was telling the truth. Her perfect, good-girl image wasn’t as straightforward as it seemed, and she had a lot of enemies. Everyone from Alex’s three sisters, her sister’s boyfriend, her father, all the Dearling children, her teachers, and boys at her school could’ve had reasons to want to silence her, and all of them still have connections to Rose’s hometown. Any one of these people could’ve panicked when Hazel was getting too close to the truth and tried to stop her. It gives the novel a lot of room to play with suspects, and that worked out really well.

Great Writing & Solid Twists

The writing was well done. I think where it really succeeded was in portraying the emotions of the characters. Each subtlety in the way characters talked or their expressions was conveyed to the reader in a way that added another layer to the dialogue. These characters are lying and hiding things, and Hanks managed to tell that to the reader without having to explicitly spell it out. The tension between the characters felt very believable too. All of these people have grown up with each other, so they have a complicated set of feelings about each other. Rose is in contention with her family about Will, the Hopelys hate the Dearlings for what Will did, and all of it is enhanced by the ticking clock on Hazel being missing.

The pacing was quick, but not overwhelming. The plot had great momentum, and I breezed right through the book. Both timelines moved the story forward, and both had interesting mystery elements woven throughout. Neither dragged, and I didn’t find myself wishing for more of one timeline or the other. I also liked that there were questions in both sections. Sometimes it can become a bit tedious when the past timeline has all the questions and the present has all the answers, or vice versa.

I appreciated that Rose’s relationship with her family made it easier for her to move independently and do her own investigating. The plot would’ve been majorly bogged down if she was going through all the regular processes of looking for a missing person instead of bending the rules and following her own trail, and the poor relationship with her family provided an adequate excuse. It also gave the other characters in the story the opportunity to move around in the background and take actions that would later factor into the plot. It was a good creative choice.

It’s my opinion that the most important part of any thriller is the twists. Yes, having strong characters is great, writing quality is always important, and pacing is a close second, but I read thrillers for that moment where I’m shocked and surprised. It’s a hard thing to balance because having too many twists leaves the reader feeling unbalanced and unmoored, but too few and they become disinterested. Packing all the twists into the last twenty pages can leave the reader’s head spinning, but a lackluster final twist can leave them unsatisfied.

Nasty Little Secrets has an excellent grasp on when and how to use a twist to change the status quo without throwing away everything that has come before it. Each one is well-supported by physical evidence and testimony, which makes each twist feel all the more plausible. They never felt cheap or out of nowhere, and at times the author let them simmer in the background for several chapters, allowing the reader to think and attempt to come up with an answer themself.

There were, like most mysteries, quite a few red herrings, but these never felt too obvious. Each red herring could have plausibly contributed to the story because a lot of people had the opportunity to be involved in the original crime. Both the Hopelys and the Dearlings are larger families, and many members had issues with Alex. It could’ve been any of them or any of their friends. I appreciated that as a reader, I was able to follow the same characters across both mysteries to see how they evolved and why they might be involved in the kidnapping.

These twists were well-plotted, well-placed, and well-supported, and I was absolutely caught off guard several times. They were excellent, and I’m excited to recommend this book to others.

I would absolutely recommend Nasty Little Secrets to anybody who loves a twisty thriller. I had such an excellent time reading this book, and I was always looking forward to finding out what happened next. The ending was very satisfying, and I would love to reread this book to see all the hints toward the final culprit through more knowing eyes. This was a very strong debut from Gabbie Hanks, and I’ll be keeping an eye out for any future publications.

Also, I really loved that this was set in Florida. FLORIDA REPRESENT! 🐊

Nasty Little Secrets releases on June 16th, 2026!

Trigger warnings:

Adult/Minor relationship, teacher/student relationship, alcohol, rape mention, bullying, infidelity, pedophilia, sexual assault, death, murder, violence, gun violence, kidnapping, mental illness.ng and even cathartic in an unexpected way. I’m just saying “know thyself” before you dive into this one.