Fans of thrillers and stories about small-town secrets will be turning the pages late into the night.
A group of friends learn that secrets can be dangerous when a mysterious stalker turns their lives upside down.
Former child star Sam and friends Haran, Dom, Elisha, and Lauren have a Halloween ritual: They go to a hut in the woods near their hometown of Hayschurch and take turns inside it confessing their darkest secrets. They always leave feeling better, but this year someone overhears them and starts tormenting each member of the group: throwing blood-filled eggs at the hut, sending menacing texts, leaving dolls’ heads in their lockers, and surreptitiously following and taking videos of them. One of the videos includes an image of the mystery sender wearing a creepy mask, and Sam is sure he’s seen it before. Once he remembers the connection, the teens realize that their situation is part of something bigger and darker going back long before they were born. The friends show a great deal of ingenuity as they investigate the few clues they have to work with. Genuinely suspenseful scenes keep the tension ratcheting up, and short chapters, plenty of well-timed twists, and an unexpected ending make this a quick, satisfying read, though readers may question whether the teens’ secrets are really terrible enough to justify the lengths they go to protect them. Contextual details point to a British setting, and names offer the only clues to ethnicity.
Fans of thrillers and stories about small-town secrets will be turning the pages late into the night. (Thriller. 12-18)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2023
ISBN: 9781250882158
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense.
Everyone believes that Salil Singh killed his girlfriend, Andrea Bell, five years ago—except Pippa Fitz-Amobi.
Pip has known and liked Sal since childhood; he’d supported her when she was being bullied in middle school. For her senior capstone project, Pip researches the disappearance of former Fairview High student Andie, last seen on April 18, 2014, by her younger sister, Becca. The original investigation concluded with most of the evidence pointing to Sal, who was found dead in the woods, apparently by suicide. Andie’s body was never recovered, and Sal was assumed by most to be guilty of abduction and murder. Unable to ignore the gaps in the case, Pip sets out to prove Sal’s innocence, beginning with interviewing his younger brother, Ravi. With his help, Pip digs deeper, unveiling unsavory facts about Andie and the real reason Sal’s friends couldn’t provide him with an alibi. But someone is watching, and Pip may be in more danger than she realizes. Pip’s sleuthing is both impressive and accessible. Online articles about the case and interview transcripts are provided throughout, and Pip’s capstone logs offer insights into her thought processes as new evidence and suspects arise. Jackson’s debut is well-executed and surprises readers with a connective web of interesting characters and motives. Pip and Andie are white, and Sal is of Indian descent.
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-9636-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
A lukewarm thriller.
In England, a group of teenagers tries to stay alive when a long weekend in an abandoned castle goes wrong.
When Bessie and her friends decide to join a party their classmate Allegra is throwing in her family’s abandoned castle before it’s converted into apartments, they think the biggest issues they’ll face are making it there before a big storm hits and keeping their plans secret from their parents and teachers. Once they arrive at the castle, however, Bessie and best friend Kashvi discover menacing graffiti and evidence that someone has been staying in the cellar. They also learn that protestors from the nearby village are angry about the development plans for the castle—one of them even argues that it would be better to burn it down. A handful of classmates manage to get there before the storm gets too severe. But when the teens wake up the next day to discover one of their own dead, and the storm makes it impossible for them to leave, they quickly realize that they’re in danger. But is the killer one of the members of the Facebook protestors’ group…or one of their own? Despite the book’s intriguing setup, the prose is dominated by repetitive conversations that convey little substance. Still, readers may still find themselves propelled forward by a need to discover the identity of the murderer. The central cast is racially diverse.
A lukewarm thriller. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593704080
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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