Beyond the Cemetery Gate: The Secret Keeper’s Daughter  by Valerie Biel

Genre: YA Mystery/ Suspense

Length:  330 pages

Publisher:  Lost Lake Press, 2024

Reviewed by Leoma Retan

A compelling mystery of despair, friendship, and learning

This is not an ordinary mystery. Sixteen-year-old Chloe Corwyn has no fear of cemeteries. She grew up in one. But when she finds her father propped against her favorite grave monument in the dark of night, dead, she feels lost and alone despite all the people who feel sorry and want to help her. Or maybe because she believes they are only saying the expected words.

In Beyond the Cemetery Gate: The Secret Keeper’s Daughter, author Valerie Biel does a superb job of capturing the feeling of complete aloneness experienced by anyone who has lost the one person closest to them. Chloe does not want kind words nor to be protected from unpleasantness. She wants someone to believe what she knows to be true—that there is no way her father willingly took drugs.

As Chloe investigates, she shows the depths of her strength. But to unravel the truth, she must accept that not all of her personal history is the truth. And she must learn to trust others.

Told from three points of view—Chloe, her father, and a mysterious Watcher—this book weaves a compelling story of despair, friendship, and learning to find new anchors when the one you have depended on all your life is snatched away from you.

Whether you are a young adult or an old one, if you like settings that are spooky and a little creepy rather than gory, and main characters who press forward despite well-meaning people trying to “help,” I expect you will enjoy this book. I love the characters so much that I’m already hoping for a sequel.

* * *

Reviewer Bio: Leoma Retan is a retired engineer, avid writer, proud techno-freak, and pet mom of up to twenty cats and one dog. Born in Wisconsin, she’s lived many places. A member of the Wisconsin Writers Association, she builds worlds in her dreams and relaxes by exploring past, present, and future possibilities.  Leoma Retan website