Until She Dies by Kendra Elliot
#3 Noelle Marshall
Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Montlake
Published: 9.8.26
Pages: 328
Rating: 5 stars
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Sellers: Amazon
ADD TO: GoodReads
GoodReads Synopsis:
Detective Noelle Marshall and FBI Agent Max Rhodes unearth bodies and secrets as they become targets of a serial killer in a chilling novel of suspense by a Wall Street Journal bestselling author.
When a search dog locates a mass burial ground in the Oregon forest, Detective Noelle Marshall is plunged into a hunt for a killer who’s hiding in plain sight. The key to her case lies in a decades-old a lone survivor who escaped and is still out there, living in fear. The murderer is a phantom who left behind a collection of victims with nothing in common but their final resting place.
As pressure mounts to identify the bodies and find the killer, the investigation draws in FBI Agent Max Rhodes—Noelle’s partner in work and in life. They’ve hunted monsters before, but this one has spent years preparing for this moment, and he craves revenge. As the search narrows and the clock tightens, Noelle and Max must confront a predator who knows the terrain—and their weaknesses—better than they do.
Sophia Rose's Review:
When a casual hike in the forest leads to an off-duty K-9 alerting to buried bodies, Noelle Marshall and her law enforcement friends land into another dark, thrilling mystery. Kendra Elliot’s latest installment in the Noelle Marshall series kicks up the reader’s heartrate nicely.
Until She Dies is the third in the Noelle Marshall series and connects strongly to the second book, No One Knew, as well as the previous Mercy Kilpatrick and Columbia River series so it is best read in order.
Noelle Marshall’s life has come a long way in recent months. She is in a loving relationship with a man who respects her as a work partner as well as his romance partner, she has unofficially adopted a grieving, once-abused teen girl who brought a menagerie of pets with her, and she has forged friendships and community in their part of central Oregon. Max, her partner, has returned home and taken up his FBI career locally.
A body dump site for a serial killer and one of the victim’s young daughter gone missing bring Noelle’s Sheriff’s dept and Max’s FBI investigation work together on a shared case that loops in Evan as the law enforcement community’s lead and the investigation pulls in close friends, Rowan, Mercy and Truman. On the peripheral, young Emma and Ollie carefully reach out past their similar trauma-sufferings to share a first date.
Noelle and the forensics’ team sift through the evidence from the bodies, follow up every lead and find it slow going trying to find the connections that will lead to a serial killer who has been at it for decades. Meanwhile, Max and several others are giving it their all to locate a little girl even as the hours give way to days of nothing. The dead mother had secrets, but someone- likely the missing roommate- have the answers.
Eventually, the evidence and witness testimony leads toward a shocking truth, but will they arrive at the truth in time before the killer strikes again and much closer to home than they could possibly imagine.
Until She Dies is an amazing blend of rural police procedural and combined law enforcement work with careful and well-described character and relationship growth for Noelle, Max, and Emma in the lead roles. I loved seeing them all acknowledge their pasts, work to strengthen what they have together and heal from personal traumas. The inclusion of characters from previous books and series as part of a growing fraternity of found family and friends just made it feel even more comfortable and familiar even while the case itself kept it thrilling and tense.
Utterly satisfactory and left me eager for what comes next with the series and characters. Thriller, Mystery, and Romantic Suspense fans who like clever characters and careful police procedural in a beautiful rural setting should definitely give this series a go.
Author Bio:
As a kid, I read and read and read. Laura Ingalls, Nancy Drew, and Trixie Belden were my close companions, and I was never without a book in hand. Today mysteries and suspense are my primary reading genres. I enjoy Lee Child, Karen Rose, Robert Crais, Lisa Gardner, Michael Connelly, and Tami Hoag. But I also love to escape with a historical romance or an engrossing fantasy set in another world. Authors are always huge readers.
In 2006 I’d recently finished one of Diana Gabaldon’s novels for the umpteenth time, and I loved how satisfied and content I felt at the end. A true sign of great storytelling. Could I provide that experience for a reader? I sat down and spent six months writing a contemporary romance. Strangely I kept tripping over dead bodies in each chapter. I got the hint and my stories evolved into suspense. I never felt the need to “tell the stories cluttering my head” or “share my work with the world” like some authors. My goal was to simply see if I could entertain a reader.
HIDDEN was the third manuscript I finished, but my first book purchased by a publisher. It came out in the summer of 2012 and since then has sold over a million copies. I won the Daphne du Maurier award three times and have hit the Wall Street Journal’s best seller list more than a dozen times. I’ve been an International Thriller Writers’s finalist and a finalist for Romantic Times Magazine’s best Romantic Suspense. As I update this in 2026, I’ve sold 15 million books, and I’m working on my twenty-sixth novel. I’ve also written eleven novellas and sold the TV rights for my Mercy Kilpatrick series, but the option was not renewed after two years, so the series is not in production.
I wouldn’t trade this career for anything, and I count my blessings every day, thankful that readers have embraced my books.
https://www.kendraelliot.com/
Sophia’s Bio:
Sophia is a quiet though curious gal who dabbles in cooking, book reviewing, piano-playing, and gardening. Road trips and campouts, museums and monuments, restaurants and theaters are her jam. Encouraged and supported by an incredible man and loving family. A Northern Californian transplant to the Great Lakes Region of the US. Lover of Jane Austen, Baseball, Cats, Scooby Doo, and Chocolate.
As a lifelong reader, it was inevitable that Sophia would discover book blogs and the joy of blog reviewing. Sophia is a prolific reader and audiobook listener which allows her to experience so many wonderful books, authors, and narrators. Few genres are outside her reading tastes, but her true love is fiction particularly history, mystery, sci-fi, and romance. Though, sorry, no horror or she will run like Shaggy and Scooby.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sophia.rose.7587
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophiarose1816
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13418187.Sophia_Rose
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