ONLY IF YOU'RE LUCKY STACY WILLINGHAM

Only If You’re Lucky is a great mixture of dark academia and thriller. While this one’s very different from the author’s previous novels I think she slayed it because I was absolutely hooked from the start.

Rating: ★★★★★
​Release Date: January 16, 2024
Genre: Dark Academia Thriller
Series: None.
Pages: 375
Format: Paperback Source: Minotaur Publishing

​A sharp and twisty exploration of female friendship from the New York Times bestselling author of A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things.

Lucy Sharpe is larger than life. Magnetic, addictive. Bold and dangerous. Especially for Margot, who meets Lucy at the end of their freshman year at a liberal arts college in South Carolina. Margot is the shy one, the careful one, always the sidekick and never the center of attention. But when Lucy singles her out at the end of the year, a year Margot spent studying and playing it safe, and asks her to room together, something in Margot can't say no—something daring, or starved, or maybe even envious.

And so Margot finds herself living in an off-campus house with three other girls, Lucy, the ringleader; Sloane, the sarcastic one; and Nicole, the nice one, the three of them opposites but also 

deeply intertwined. It's a year that finds Margot finally coming out of the shell she's been in since the end of high school, when her best friend Eliza died three weeks after graduation. Margot and Lucy have become the closest of friends, but by the middle of their sophomore year, one of the fraternity boys from the house next door has been brutally murdered... and Lucy Sharpe is missing without a trace.

From the author of A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things comes a tantalizing thriller about the nature of friendship and belonging, about loyalty, envy, and betrayal—another gripping novel from an author quickly becoming the gold standard in psychological suspense.

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READ MY BOOK REVIEW

Only If You’re Lucky is a great mixture of dark academia and thriller. While this one’s very different from the author’s previous novels I think she slayed it because I was absolutely hooked from the start. The book centers around Margot after the loss of her best friend who tragically died one night at a party. It was ruled and accident, but Margot thinks the boy her friend was seeing may have played a role in her death. Fast forward one year later and Margot is in school studying English when she meets the enigmatic Lucy. Lucy is everything Margot wants to be, so she not only befriends her, but she moves in with her and two other girls as well. What starts as a fun new situation thanks to the frat house next door and all the parties they attend quickly becomes more malevolent when the boy from her past suddenly joins the fraternity. And what happens next will shock readers to the core. The twist is fantastic, unexpected, and brilliant. I didn’t see it coming although I do suspect that some readers will. It may not be completely original but the lead up TO the twist is so I was excited!

One other thing to note about this book is that it’s more of a slow burn, character driven novel. Books like this are not for everyone but I do recommend it because I think the author did an amazing job telling this story.

𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗙𝗘𝗖𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗙𝗔𝗡𝗦 𝗢𝗙
❥ Dark Academia Thrillers
❥ Slow Burn/Character driven novels
❥ Riveting twists

𝗠𝗬 𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐