In I Know What You Did, Cayce Osborne's gripping and empathetic debut thriller, a woman retraces her disturbing past after a bestselling book accuses her of a 30-year-old murder. Petal Woznewski fills her days with junk food, weed, and an endless stream of mindless movies on Netflix. She keeps everyone in her life at arm's length, including her on-and-off boyfriend, Gus. While her middle-aged character's immaturity at times seems off-putting and even irritating, she has a good reason for her arrested development: when she was in middle school, both of her parents died in an apparent suicide. But that was only the first in a series of traumatic events. A short time later, Petal and her friend Jenny were there when their friend Megan died under mysterious circumstances. When an unknown author pens a fictionalized account of Megan's death that calls Petal out by name, she is forced to return to her hometown to confront the long-kept secrets that changed the trajectory of her life.
As Petal digs deeper into the mystery surrounding the book, she learns new truths about her past--as well as hard lessons that will feel familiar to anyone who has something in their history they would like to forget. "Time is supposed to soften us, give us distance from the people we wronged and the deeds we regret," Petal says. "But it doesn't.... If what you're trying to bury is bad enough, it never sinks, never fades." These periodic insights puncture Petal's disaffected stoner façade and show that she's still a wounded girl who longs for healing--and the vulnerable beating heart of this riveting thriller. --Angela Lutz, freelance reviewer