Speaking of secrets, Cailyn Lloyd’s first book in this series, Shepherd’s Warning, was such a pleasant surprise. I didn’t know anything about this author, but she was kind enough to entrust her book to me. Book one was a haunted house story at its core, but with elements of magic and elders, people who had been around hundreds if not thousands of years. No tentacles.

Even though this book was part of a planned trilogy, the ghost story was relatively self-contained. What impressed me most was that Lloyd didn’t rely on the trilogy spanning ideas to carry this novel. She wrote something that stood on its own.

The point of that tangent being that when book two showed up in the mail, I was thrilled to see where the story would go next. Would we revisit characters from book one or would this be another self-contained story with loose connections to book one.

Quinlan’s Secret tells the story of a couple, Josh and Kiera, buying and renovating a tavern in Wisconsin, not far from the events in the first book. The tavern is reportedly haunted, and immediately the owners begin to experience activity, mostly annoying things at first. This all leads to a massive discovery on their property that propel the events of the rest of the book.

Like the first book, this one is able to stand heavily on its own. As I’ve said before I don’t like to read books out of order or start in the middle of a series. That being said, you could read this and appreciate it without having read the first, but you probably shouldn’t. There are a lot of callbacks and world-building.

Just like we have a name for the protagonists that span the series in the elders, we are treated to a name for the force of evil that seems to be running rampant in Packers country. The book builds slowly and then cuts loose in a pretty bonkers third act that establishes new precedence for what this force of evil is capable of.

As much as I love the world building, there is an element of middle book syndrome present. The pressure to create a work that connects to book one and also sets up book three is not an enviable one. For the most part, Lloyd balances this task with grace, but there are times where it felt like some elements that should have been resolved at the end of this story, are left to be resolved in book three. Admittedly, this is a minor gripe since it didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of Quinlan’s Secret, and served to get me excited a year ahead of time for Hayward’s Revenge, the upcoming third and final book in the series.

Cailyn Lloyd is something of a well-kept secret in the horror community, and I’m hoping to see that change. I’m anxiously looking forward to how this series wraps up in book three, and I can’t wait to see what she has planned next. Highly recommend this entry in the series to fans of the first, fans of haunted house/tavern stories. There are also some light magical and historical fiction elements present if that’s your thing.


I was given a copy by the author for review consideration.