The terrors and tragedies of adolescence come back to haunt the protagonists of these thrillers.
The Camp
Nancy Bush. Zebra, June
Veteran romantic suspense author Bush plumbs campside ghost stories and the ’80s slasher movie canon for her latest offering. Brooke, Rona, and Wendy return to their newly reopened summer camp for a reunion, and to confront their memories of the night 20 years earlier when a fellow camper was found dead near the lake, her arms crossed over her chest, cause of death unknown. There’s something lurking at the lake, and this time, they may not get out alive.
The Only Survivors
Megan Miranda. Scribner/Rucci, Apr.
In what PW’s review called a “tempestuous, emotionally wrenching tale of courage, betrayal, guilt, and just maybe forgiveness,” Cassidy Bent makes her annual pilgrimage to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, to meet up with the other survivors of a high school bus crash. One of their number killed herself on the first anniversary of the crash, and on this 10th anniversary, another is dead, also seemingly by her own hand. As a storm blocks the roads out, a third survivor mysteriously slips away from the group. Suspicion grows among the few who remain, and the reunion threatens to be just as deadly as the long-ago crash.
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Prom Mom
Laura Lippman. Morrow, July
Amber Glass gave birth in a Baltimore hotel bathroom on prom night, then killed the baby—or did she? She’s spent two decades trying to outrun her reputation, but when she returns to her hometown, the past catches up with her in the form of Joe, the prom date who ditched her that night—now married and with everything to lose.
The Schoolhouse
Sophie Ward. Vintage, Mar.
North London, 1990: librarian Isobel sequesters herself from the world and from her dark memories of the Schoolhouse, the experimental school she attended in the 1970s. When a 10-year-old girl goes missing—a girl Isobel knows she saw at the library the following day—and a troubling letter arrives from a Schoolhouse teacher, Isobel is forced to confront her painful past. PW’s starred review called this a “superlative psychological thriller.”
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