Publishers Weekly
11/27/2023
The latest from Willingham (All the Dangerous Things) is a cunning if somewhat implausible campus thriller. As Margot nears the end of her achingly lonely freshman year—a far cry from the adventurous one she’d imagined with her bestie, Eliza, who had died under suspicious circumstances weeks after their high school graduation—at South Carolina’s Rutledge College, she can’t fathom why Lucy Sharpe, one of the school’s most popular coeds, would invite her to room with her and her wingwomen in the historic off-campus house they’re renting for the summer. Still, Margot leaps at the offer, plunging into what turns out to be a maelstrom of secrets, mind games, and possibly murder. Despite her natural reserve, Margot clicks with the uninhibited Lucy, sliding into a sidekick role similar to the one she played with Eliza. However, as the summer’s booze-soaked partying with the neighboring fraternity winds on, Lucy’s darker side emerges, especially after the arrival of prospective frat pledge Levi Butler—Eliza’s old boyfriend, who was reportedly the last person to see her alive. Flash forward several months: Levi’s dead, Lucy has disappeared, and Margot’s narration has become increasingly unreliable. Though the twisty narrative grows far-fetched as it nears the climax, Willingham’s prose remains evocative, and her deep dive into the thorny nature of female friendship rings true. Though this doesn’t rank among the author’s best work, it’s still a gripping ride. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Stacy Willingham
“Stellar suspense at its very best.” –Vulture
"Exceptionally smart, entertaining." —The Washington Post
“Gripping.” —South Florida Sun Sentinel
“Haunting.” —PopSugar
"A bona fide rising star in the mystery and thriller genre.” —Goodreads
"Superior plotting." —South Florida Sun Sentinel
“Willingham offers taut storytelling and a heroine with compelling vulnerability.” —Booklist
"Willingham is a writer to watch.” —Publishers Weekly
FEBRUARY 2024 - AudioFile
College sophomore Margot mysteriously loses two best friends in the span of two years in this psychological thriller, which should be categorized as a YA audiobook. Narrator Karissa Vacker does her best with the material, which features voluminous scenes of postadolescent self-reflection that are hard to enjoy listening to if you are well past your twenties. Vacker is gifted at shifting her vocal register to believably voice the male characters, like the fraternity brothers who live next door to Margot, one of whom turns up dead. Although the characters are North Carolina natives and the Outer Banks location features prominently, Vacker never employs an accent. The final chapters are inventive and unexpected, but it takes some listening patience to get there. J.T. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2023-10-21
A first-year college student accepts an invitation to leave her dormitory and move into a house with three other women. Then absolutely everything goes wrong.
In truth, it’s been a while since things were right for Margot, an Outer Banks native who followed her childhood friend Eliza Jefferson in applying to South Carolina’s Rutledge College, only to have Eliza die the summer after their high school graduation. Margot’s overachieving parents wanted her to go to Duke. Determined to honor Eliza’s memory, however, she instead goes to Rutledge, where nothing much happens until Lucy Sharpe casts a knowing eye over her. Lucy lives in an outbuilding on the grounds of the Kappa Nu fraternity, and she’s sure that Margot would provide the perfect addition to her other housemates. Sloane Peters and Nicole Clausen, the housemates in question, are less certain and less impressed by the newcomer. But strong-willed Lucy carries all before her until Levi Butler, a Kappa Nu legacy who’s pledged the fraternity, is found dead with Lucy’s blood on his clothes. Detective Frank, as Margot calls him, wants to know more. He’s not going to find it out from Lucy, who’s gone AWOL, or from her friends, who treat her absence as no big deal—hey, she’s probably just getting it on with somebody or getting wasted somewhere. But Margot can’t help taking Levi’s death more personally, since she knows that he was once Eliza’s boyfriend and is convinced that somebody’s covering something up. In fact, pretty much everybody is covering up pretty much everything, and readers waiting for the big reveal will have to get by on a diet of gossip, gap-filled memories, and college angst in the meantime.
The payoff is handsome, but the road there is too much of too little.
