Gytha Lodge Books In Order

Publication Order of DCI Jonah Sheens Books

Gytha Lodge
Gytha Lodge is a multi award winning playwright and writer that lives in Cambridge.

She studied English at Cambridge, where she became known rather quickly for her brand of dark and twisty yet entertaining drama.

After she studied creative writing at UEA, she was shortlisted for the Yeovil Literary Prize and the Arts’ Council England fiction awards. She developed a huge online following for her children’s and young adult writing, with more than five million reads racked up on platform Wattpad.

Gytha has a profound addiction to awful puns, tea, and crosswords. When she is not busy writing, she heads up a copywriting team at a global translation firm, where she typically attempts to keep all of the video game writing to herself.

For Gytha, the best part of being a writer is creating a world that people can get lost in. That’s what she loves about books. There’s a ton of other great things: it stretches her imagination, writing is cathartic, and is a way of communicating so many things that she would never say to anybody. Plus, she is unbelievably nosy about other people.

“She Lies in Wait” is the first novel in the “DCI Jonah Sheens” series and was released in 2019. On a scorching night in July of 1983, a group of teens goes camping out in the forest. Brilliant and bright, they’re all destined for great things, and Aurora Jackson (the youngest of their group) is just delighted to be allowed the chance to come along. The evening begins like any other: they dance and drink, they kiss and fight. Some of them slip off out into the woods in pairs, while others are left heartbroken and jealous.

However by morning, Aurora’s the one gone missing. Her buddies claim that she was safe and sound the last time they saw her, right before she went to bed. An exhaustive investigation is performed, however no trace of the teen is ever found.

Three decades later, Aurora’s body is dug up in a hideaway which only the six friends knew anything about, and Jonah Sheens is put in charge of solving this long cold case. Back in 83, as a young cop in their small town, he’d known these teens, including Aurora, personally, even before he took part in the search. Now he is bound and determined to finally get to the truth of what actually happened that night.

His investigation brings the members of the camping party back to this forest, where they’ll be confronted yet again with the events which left one dead, and each of them profoundly changed forever.

“Watching From the Dark” is the second novel in the “DCI Jonah Sheens” series and was released in 2020. One witness, one crime. And one question: why didn’t he call the cops?

A vibrant young woman is murdered while she’s on a video chat, a small town detective wades into a circle of lovers and friends with dangerous secrets.

Aidan Poole logs onto his computer late at night to Skype with Zoe, his girlfriend. To his horror, he realizes that somebody else is in her flat. He can just hear the sounds of a violent struggle taking place in the bathroom, and then just silence. He’s desperate to learn if she’s ok. However why is he so reluctant to call the cops?

When his cryptic messages finally get to them, Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens and his team take this case. And they find the body. They quickly find that nobody has a bad word to say about Zoe, who was a big hearted young artist in the middle of a curious web of strays and waifs, each of whom rely on her for support, and each one hiding buried resentments and dark secrets. Has one of her so-called “friends” been driven to murder? Or could Aidan have the biggest secret out of all of them?

“Lie Beside Me” is the third novel in the “DCI Jonah Sheens” series and was released in 2021. You wake up, and can’t remember what happened. The guy lying next to you is not your husband. And he is not breathing.

Louise wakes up, her head aches, her mouth is dry, and her memory is fuzzy. However she still suspects that she has done something pretty bad. She rolls over toward Niall, her husband. The guy who, until quite recently, made her feel loved. However it’s not Niall that is lying beside her. In fact, she has never seen this man before. And he’s dead.

While Louise desperately struggles to piece her memories back together, it is obvious to Detective Sheens and his team that she is the prime suspect, even though they quickly learn that she is not the only one here with something to hide. Did she do it? And if she didn’t, can they catch this murderer before they strike again?

This is an engaging story of murder, rivalry, and lust. Gytha delivers a dark, terrific, and deep, in this scorching portrait of friendship and its betrayal.

“Little Sister” is the fourth novel in the “DCI Jonah Sheens” series and was released in 2022. Two girls went into the woods, and just one came back.

Jonah Sheens is enjoying a bit of peace in a pub garden on his day off when a teen girl wanders out of the woods. She is striking with flame red hair and pale complexion. She is also covered in blood.

Jonah races to help her, the girl just insists that she is fine. Then she smiles, it is her sister he must to worry about. Keely and her sister, named Nina, vanished from a children’s home just a week ago. And now Keely is here, however Nina’s still missing. Jonah is certain that Keely knows where her sister has gone, yet before she will tell him anything, she insists he hear her story from the very beginning.

Is this girl the victim, witness, or killer? And if Jonah follows the trail of clues in her story, are they going to lead him to this missing girl, or just distract him until time runs out?