Why we’re excited
Rachel Pratt was the only one of four kidnapped girls to make it home in 1999, and her testimony put Simon Burkett on death row. Now his conviction has been thrown out, the town sees her as the liar who jailed an innocent man, and two weeks after his release another girl vanishes.
Stacy Willingham's debut A Flicker in the Dark made her a name in Southern suspense, and she keeps coming back to small towns and old crimes. A survivor doubting her own memory is a strong premise. Readers who like slow-burn psychological thrillers with a cold case attached should note it.
On our most-anticipated list since 21 October 2026. See all the most anticipated books →
What to know about Keep Me Like a Secret
Stacy Willingham is a familiar name here: 2 of Stacy Willingham’s books have full reviews, averaging 3.8 out of 5. Our highest-rated so far is Forget Me Not (4★).
It sits at No. 5 on our June 2027 most-anticipated list, which ranks the month's books by how many readers have saved them.
From the publisher
New York Times bestselling author Stacy Willingham unearths a Southern town's darkest secrets in her latest twisty thriller
Back in 1999, four ten-year-old girls were kidnapped in Fairhope, Alabama, one at a time. Three of them never came home, but Rachel Pratt, the sole survivor of the “Fairhope Four”, fought her way free and lived to tell the tale.
Fairhope is the kind of small town where bad things don’t happen, so the case made national news. It was primarily Rachel’s testimony that sent her kidnapper, Simon Burkett, to death row―but now, twenty-six years later, Simon's sentence has been overturned on a technicality, and Rachel is in the news all over again.
This time, however, she’s no longer the brave little girl who escaped, but the villain who may have put an innocent man behind bars.
Two weeks after Simon’s release, another girl goes missing in Fairhope, and Rachel returns to her hometown in fear that her own nightmare is happening again. As the days pass, she is overwhelmed with her memories of that long ago summer, and begins to doubt her own recollections. Has Simon Burkett struck again, or has another monster emerged in Fairhope? Determined to uncover the truth, once and for all, Rachel dives head-first into her own investigation, no matter whose deepest secrets she will unravel―including her own.
Description supplied by the publisher.
We haven’t read Keep Me Like a Secret yet. When our review goes up, it will replace this page.
