📖 Reviewed by PS | Rating: 5/5 | Steam: 🔥 | Book 1 in the Dark Secrets Series | Edited by LD
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Legacy of Lies yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
The Opening
Okay so I don’t give 5 out of 5 to just anything. But this book? This book got it. I’m literally rereading it right now because I’m not ready to be done with it. It’s creepy and mysterious and the ending had me just sitting there like. Oh. OHHHH.
If you like haunted houses and ghosts and forbidden romance, you need this book in your life now.
The Full Story — Spoilers Included
Megan and Scarborough House
The story follows Megan, a teenager from Arizona who goes to visit her grandmother’s estate in Maryland. Her grandmother Helen cut off Megan’s mom years ago and Megan has literally never met her. She goes to try to fix things. And from the moment she gets there everything is just. Off. In the best way.
The thing is — Megan has been having nightmares her whole life. About a haunted house. A dollhouse. A ghost. And when she shows up to Scarborough House for the first time, it’s the exact same place from her dreams. Every single detail. She has never been there before in her life.
I read that part and I knew I was not sleeping that night.
The Ghost Named Avril
Megan does not get a warm welcome. Her grandmother Helen is cold and kind of awful, super obsessed with family history and control. And then there’s Matt, her “cousin” who lives at the estate, and he is so rude to her from the start. Keeps telling her to leave. That she doesn’t belong there.
(He is obviously the love interest. You’ll see.)
First night, Megan hears a voice say “hi, my name is Avril.” Twice. She looks around. Nothing. The next night she wakes up in the forbidden wing of the house, a whole section she was told to stay out of. She sleepwalked there.
And in that room with all the old stuff and the rose wallpaper there’s a dollhouse. The exact dollhouse from her dreams.
Remember, she has never been to this house before.
Avril Scarborough is Megan’s great-aunt, her grandmother’s sister, who died about fifty years ago and nobody talks about it. As Megan stays in the house she starts noticing things moving around, going back to where they used to be when Avril was alive. She finds a Bible in the library and her grandmother just loses it when she sees it.
Avril is still in this house. She is very much still in this house.
Matt, Alex, and Oh No
As the book goes on Megan and Matt start actually talking and getting closer and her grandmother hates it, which is suspicious.
Matt’s best friend Alex starts flirting with Megan and Matt gets all weird about it immediately. Like there’s this part where Matt tells Megan she has a big mouth and says it’s easier to kiss her with.
MATT.
They end up going to a party at Christie’s house — Alex with Megan, Matt with Sophie who is one of Megan’s friends. Alex and Sophie hook up at the party. So that ends that.
Megan also starts working at a local shop and finds this place called Tea Leaves where a psychic named Mrs. Riley lives upstairs. And Mrs. Riley starts telling her things she should not know. About Avril. About the grandmother. About what happened. When Megan leaves the session she looks back and sees her grandmother walking straight toward the psychic’s door.
Okay Helen what are you hiding????
Visions at the Watermill
Matt takes Megan to the old watermill. While they’re there she has this really intense vision. Avril and a boy named Thomas playing hide and seek, Avril gets stuck in the mill and almost drowns, she’s screaming for Thomas. And there’s a woman just watching it happen. Named Lydia Riley.
Also Thomas looks exactly like Matt.
They go home and I was spiraling at this point.
Red Creep and the Worst Cup of Tea
Megan starts looking into something called red creep, this plant she keeps coming across. She decides to go back to the watermill. But first she stops to see a fortune teller named Lydia.
Lydia makes her tea.
The tea has red creep in it.
My stomach dropped even though I kind of knew it was coming.
The Watermill Showdown
Megan shows up to the watermill already drugged. Lydia is waiting. Matt finds her and tries to get her to leave but Lydia has convinced Megan with the drugs that she can’t trust him.
And then the whole truth comes out.
Fifty years ago Avril went to see Lydia. Lydia drugged Avril’s tea with red creep. Avril overdosed and died. Because Lydia was obsessed with Thomas, Avril’s boyfriend, and wanted him for herself.
After Avril died Thomas ended up with grandmother Helen. They got married and had a whole life together.
And now Lydia is doing it again. To Megan. Who looks exactly like Avril. Because Megan is adopted — not actually related to Matt at all — and Matt looks exactly like Thomas.
The house has been pushing Megan and Matt together this whole time, toward the same thing that happened fifty years ago. Is it reincarnation? Is it just history repeating? The book doesn’t fully explain it and honestly that made it even better.
Matt grabs Megan and yells “Avril, don’t leave me again.”
I was NOT okay.
Megan grabs a pipe holding the door open. It slips. It flies at Lydia. Lydia dies.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
So satisfied. Megan wakes up in the hospital and Matt is there. He asks if she remembers. She does.
And there’s more — it comes out that Helen knew what happened to Avril and covered it up for decades to protect the family name. There are also secrets about where Megan actually came from and why she was adopted that connect back to all of this. I was not expecting that.
Avril was guiding Megan the whole time. Moving stuff. Showing her visions. She needed the truth to come out. And once it does the nightmares stop and Megan and Matt — who are not actually related — get to be together for real.
It’s the kind of ending that makes you flip back to page one.
Would I Reread It?
Literally doing it right now.
Who Is This For
If you’re a pre-teen or teen and you like mysteries and ghost stories and slow burn romance that makes you want to scream, this is your book. I read it in one sitting. I could not stop. I kept thinking about it for days after. The reincarnation stuff especially. If you’re older and you used to read books like this when you were younger — also read it. No shame. It’s so good.
Where to Get This Book
📖 Physical Book
Amazon US | Amazon CA | Bookshop.org
Ready for more from PS? Find them here
Plot Twisted. 🔥
📖 | Series: Dark Secrets Book 1 | Genre: Forbidden Romance, Mystery | Steam: 🔥