I was lucky enough to receive both the E-ARC and Audiobook.to this book. I was excited because I had never read anything by this author. So I started the ebook and well it was just not working for me. I switched to the audiobook and sadly that didn't capture my attention. I just couldn't connect with the characters the storyline etc. So sadly I DNFed this book. I'm rating the book 3 stars because while it wasn't the book for me it might be the perfect book for someone else.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the E-ARC. And to Macmillan Audio for the ALC

All thoughts and opinions are honest and my own.

This is a comfortable college friend murder suspense story along the lines of pretty little liars. It takes place half in the outer banks in high school and the rest of the POVs are in college. Overlap in characters, dual timeline stories. I love the style of books like this because it sets you up for some great twists. I did see some of them coming but was definitely surprised by a couple.

Bit of a slower burn to start and doesn't heat up until close to the end, but the majority of the book is a story in toxic friendship, popularity, "one of those girls" (everyone knows one) and what kids will do to fit in.

This is a comfort thriller for me. Love this type of story and love this author's writing.

The first 60% was too slow for my preference for a thriller and the main character had the personality of a wet napkin. The last 40%, however, felt like a different book and had twists on twists. I think it could’ve been about 75 pages shorter and it would’ve helped the pacing a lot. I guessed some of the reveals but there were others that dropped my jaw to the floor and had me nearly throwing my kindle 😅 I’m so glad I buddy-read this one with a dear friend - it made the guessing game so much more interesting and really forced me to think about all the details more than I would have on my own.

Margot and Eliza, both children of wealthy families, have been best friends all their lives. They did everything together. In fact, they planned to go to the same college and live in the same dorm rooms together. Then Levi came into their life, and Eliza began keeping secrets, and Margot felt worse than a third wheel. Eliza died at a graduation party, and Margot came undone.

She still went to the college the friends had planned to attend, but trudged through her days, barely leaving her dorm room or interacting with others.

A year later, Margot falls under the spell of the charismatic and enigmatic Lucy, who invites Margot to share the rent on a house with two others. Margot meets Sloane and Nicole, and learns that that the house they're in connects, through its back yard, to the yard of a fraternity house. And the frat boys are their landlords.

Soon after she moves in, Levi joins the fraternity. Margot is infuriated, and Lucy focuses her attention on him, as the girls and the frat boys party many times together.

The action cuts to the present, when Margot, Sloane and Nicole are questioned by a police detective. Levi is dead, and Lucy is missing. The girls maintain it’s not unusual for Lucy to do unusual things, like disappearing for days on end before returning suddenly. Privately, the girls decide to stick to this story until the detective moves on, leaving them in peace.

This story didn't hold a lot of interest for me. The frequent mention of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is a pretty big clue to one of the secrets in this story, as well as a window into two of the characters.

It's not super hard to figure out who was behind Eliza's death, and the fiction the girls provide the detective isn't hard to penetrate either, giving the reader the answer to Lucy's disappearance.

This was not author Stacy Willingham's better efforts.

Thank you to Netgalley and to St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.

This is my second title from Willingham and it did not disappoint. The book follows Margot and her three girlfriends and their life in their college rental. When a boy from Margot's past shows up at the fraternity house next door, old secrets are brought up. This thriller is interesting and and a quick read. It is set in South Carolina as well as the Outer Banks. Having traveled to these areas before I was interested in the setting. Willingham does a good job unfolding the story. She brought me back to my college days. Would highly recommend!

The story was engaging and had some very good twists at the end. I know some people get annoyed by an unreliable narrator- but I quite like one, and we find one in this story.

Margot, the main character is a reserved, quiet observer personality. What the reader begins to understand throughout the story is how possessive she really is. She grips on to strong, assertive females and feels more complete in their presence.

Margot’s best friend died right before attending the small college she and Margot planned to attend together. While there, she meets Lucy, who reminds Margot so much of her best friend that she is drawn in and falls pray to her manipulative ways. This story explores their relationship and also looks back at her relationship with her best friend and her death.

This book is billed as dark academia- but I’m not sure I agree. It is set at a college campus- but there is not much to do with the school. It centers around the house that Margot lives in, and the fraternity house next door. This story felt way more YA than this author’s previous books. This wasn’t my favorite (that would be A Flicker in the Dark), but I still enjoyed it. I saw one of the twists coming, but the others caught me off guard.

Read this if you like unreliable narrators, more of a YA bend and love psychological suspense. I think you’ll really like this one. Thank you to @stmartinspress and @netgalley for the arc to read and review.

In the author’s note, I learned that the author attended UGA, as my daughter did, so that was a fun fact to learn. Go Dawgs!

The ending definitely saved this one, but it got a little snoozefest worthy in the middle. I would’ve liked more action. Not my favorite from the author

This is an interesting look at how jealousy can destroy the soul and the twists and turns that transpire on a college campus. The characters are not particularly likeable, but they aren't meant to be and while I wasn't always sure what was going on, I had an idea of where the story was headed. It's an entertaining mystery and I really enjoyed the audiobook, narrated by Karissa Vacker.

2.5 ⭐️ I have to say I do enjoy a slow burn thriller but this was a bit too slow. It took until 70% for it to take off and even then it was still slow. I felt there were some major plot holes and a few things that didn’t make sense. I do enjoy Stacy Willingham so I will read more of her books but this one was just a miss for me.

My least favorite by Stacy Willingham.

It was entertaining enough, but there wasn’t the suspense or mystery I was hoping for.

And even when the ‘twist’ was revealed- I wasn’t surprised in any sense.

I’ll continue reading her books because I love her writing style- but this missed the mark for me.

Moody and evocative, this book is the very essence of a slow burn, best described, in the author’s own words, as a tantalizingly “slow simmer”, bubbling and congealing, before “morphing into a full-blown boil”.

Margot, our first person POV, is a strange and disturbingly-repressed narrator. Revealing little, and concealing much about what feels to the reader to be a harrowing and traumatic past, all we know is that very recently Margot’s best friend Eliza died, and Margot is now on her own at her South Carolinian college, seeking a newly-solitary social footing, grieving and shaky and uncertain as she faces her new surroundings on her own.

When Margot unexpectedly is approached by Lucy, and is introduced into her pals Nicole, and Sloane, (the threesome forming a close and undeniably cool clique, with icy-eyed Lucy their enigmatic leader), Margot can’t believe her luck when she is offered an opportunity to room off campus with them.

As the girls and their party-loving, alcohol-fueled world unfolds - centering on interactions with the testosterone-soaked frat boys who have unfettered access to the girls’ fraternity-owned (insanely creepy) rooming house - it’s pretty clear that everyone is hiding something, beginning with Lucy, and definitely including Margot, and her obsessive need to fit in.

As the tension mounts, it’s clear that the girls’ house, (and its carcass-filled hunting shed), may just be the most disquieting setting ever penned to page, particularly as host for the inevitable love, longing, power and lust, and all the trappings, that come with partying youth.

A terrific read, and a deeply unsettling one, with twists, turns, secrets and hidden vulnerabilities, guaranteed to keep a reader reading, right up to the doozy of an ending.

A great big thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.

I really enjoyed this story. I wasn’t sure where the story was going and while the large twist really surprised me, I started to guess how the ending would go. Overall though, it kept me guessing throughout most of the story.

I have been provided with a review copy of Only If You're Lucky from NetGalley for an impartial review. Awwww this was such a cute story. I was just captivated by everything that was taking place. It was just so easy to get into these characters lives and you just can't help but fall in love with them. I can't wait to see what's next from this author.

This is my 3rd Willingham book and while I was very intrigued by the premise, this was definitely a slower burn than her other 2. I loved the ending with the acknowledgements that inspired her from her own experience at her college house. Glad to hear it wasn't similar in any other way except the setting ;) I would say this book is my least favorite of the 3 but I still was compelled to know what happened. I ended up surprised but I wasn't as excited about the reveal as I was with the other two. Willingham is still an auto-read author for me, though I suspect not as many readers will favorite this book when the other two are so strong.

I liked the storyline and how it kept me guessing throughout the entire book. The character development was great and I felt like I knew the characters personally. I enjoyed constantly guessing how the story would end and being completely shocked by twists.

Only if you’re lucky kept me glued to the book from the very beginning till the end. There were twists and turns that I totally did not see coming!

Definitely recommend to all the mystery lovers out there

3.5 stars rounded up to a 4. I wanted to LOVE this book, because A Flicker in the Dark was my favorite thriller I read in 2023. However, this book gave me a more YA feel with the setting and characters. The plot was still really well written, and everything played out in such a wild way that kept you wanting to read more. Thank you NetGalley for this audiobook ARC!

I loved a Flicker in the Dark, and liked All the Dangerous Things. I was very excited for Willingham’s third release but this one is quite different from her first two. It felt almost like a YA book because of the college setting. It was more of a slow burn mystery than a fast paced thriller.

Of Stacy’s three books, this was not my favorite. The slow burn was too slow! I had to force myself to finish it

It absolutely kills me to say it, but this book was not a winner for me. Stacy Willingham is one of my favourite authors and I loved both of her previous books. But as the author mentions herself in the acknowledgements, this book is very different from her other ones.

There was a dark academia theme, and I’ve mentioned before that that can be very hit or miss for me. I enjoyed this one more than some others in the subgenre, but it was still a bit too much for me.

I don’t know how to describe the writing, but it was very…abstract, I guess? An ominous tone, which I like, but then I felt that it was a bit over the top. There were also so many moments where past sentences were repeated for emphasis, and it got tiring.

I will say that there were multiple twists at the end and I didn’t see any of them coming, so that was very cool. But I think I was just so detached from the story at that point that I didn’t care the same. I also felt that the story dragged and could have been shorter.

I would still recommend you try this one out if you’re curious! It just didn’t vibe so well with me.

Thank you to Minotaur Books for my gifted copy!