Echo Ridge is small-town America. Ellery's never been there, but she's heard all about it. Her aunt went missing there at age seventeen. And only five years ago, a homecoming queen put the town on the map when she was killed. Now Ellery has to move there to live with a grandmother she barely knows.
The town is picture-perfect, but it's hiding secrets. And before school even begins for Ellery, someone's declared open season on homecoming, promising to make it as dangerous as it was five years ago. Then, almost as if to prove it, another girl goes missing.
Ellery knows all about secrets. Her mother has them; her grandmother does too. And the longer she's in Echo Ridge, the clearer it becomes that everyone there is hiding something. The thing is, secrets are dangerous--and most people aren't good at keeping them. Which is why in Echo Ridge, it's safest to keep your secrets to yourself.

I’ve been in a real thriller mood lately (I think I still am tho) and I think that is one of the two reasons I liked Two Can Keep a Secret this much. The second reason is that I’ve actually expected to dislike this book pretty much, due to many disappointed readers and people saying it isn’t on a level One of Us Is Lying was. Despite those, I decided to give this book a shot since I really loved McManus’s writing, and I can tell you it was a damn good decision. I’ve always liked and been fascinated by intrigue and gossip of a small town, where literally everyone is connected in some way, and it kind of creates perfect circumstances for a crime on a level that is solvable by an amateur detective.

McManus writes YA mystery thrillers and she certainly knows her audience, as well as how to write the genre. She starts with a set of seemingly unrelated clues that are personally tied to the main characters, and from that point builds up the tension both in characters’ lives and relationships between them. Her mysteries tend to feel easygoing and simple, all the way until the unexpected plot twists and mindfucking revelations work their way through MC’s minds. Her thrilling endings and characters’ fights against the accusations of society make it clear why is she one of the most talented YA mystery writers.

Ellery and Ezra are twin siblings moving to a small town called Echo Ridge after their mother got sent into rehab after causing a car accident. Echo Ridge is a place with a lot of bad memories for Ellery’s mother, especially after the disappearance of her twin sister Sarah. Ellery is in the town for the first time, surrounded by the ghosts of the past haunting her family, just in the time of a suspicious hit-and-run and another disappearance.
Malcolm is another seventeen-year-old in Echo Ridge with murky family past. His brother, Declan, was dating Lacey (the girl who disappeared five years ago and found dead under the wheel in a theme park) and is largely suspected of being the one who killed her. Malcolm is fighting day and night to escape small-town prejudice about his family, but that becomes almost impossible when Brooke disappears and he is the last one who saw her that night.

I was really pulled into this little small-town intrigue McManus created and this book was really interesting to read. From the beginning to the end, I was like a little mystery sponge, soaking every detail and making theories of my own, but I didn’t get anywhere near what actually happened. The combination of gossip, actual clues, and an amateur detective perspective are a good way to an I-swallowed-it-in-two-days read.

McManus’s books aren’t character centered, but I almost always fall in love with her ships. They just always seem kind of sided until I find myself rushing through the last chapter, waiting for my otp to happen.