I have come to love Stacy Willingham’s books. They keep me on my toes and keep me guessing. This is a great college-age, academic setting thriller that has plenty of twists and turns to keep you coming back. The narration for the audiobook is fantastic and I’d highly recommend it!

While I enjoyed the author’s writing style and I thought the premise was interesting, this one fell a bit flat for me. The twists were a little predictable but still one of the better parts of the book. I really did not like how the dual timelines were done. I’m fine with slow burns but it seemed unnecessarily slow at times. Thankfully the chapters were quite short. I didn’t personally connect to the characters, but I thought they were written realistically. The dynamic between Lucy and the other girls felt very “Pretty Little Liars” and I did enjoy how the author explored those relationships. Overall, not my favorite but still worth a read if you like this author’s writing!
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books for providing this eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This thriller takes place at a small college in North Carolina where main character Margot has recently moved off campus with three new roommates. Margot feels an instant connection with the ringleader of the new roommates, Lucy, as she reminds her of her high school best friend who died shortly before they got to go to college together. However there is a big mystery of the book regarding why Lucy has now suddenly disappeared, shortly after the murder of a fraternity student who lives next door.

I had an uneasy feeling the whole time reading the book. The author did a good job of creating an uncomfortable atmosphere that had me questioning every character's intentions. The book has you questioning: how did Margot’s best friend from high school really die, how did the college student next door really die, and who really is Lucy, this person that Margot is growing so closely attached to?

I liked that this thriller/mystery centered around college age students as that is not something I typically see when reading thrillers. We got to see these people who are already at an age where everything is very uncertain - and now they have to deal with these very real life, big things happening like two deaths and a disappearance.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC!

This was a 3.5-4 star dramatic thriller. The book centered around a group of college kids before and after a crime took place. While the pace lagged at times, there were several good twists at the end that were unexpected and provided for a very good read. I did not find any of the characters extremely likable but the plot twists made the book extremely fun and satisfying.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book!

"If you knew you could get away with murder, would you do it.?"

This was my first Stacy Willingham book, and it definitely won't be my last. This was a fun academic thriller, with crazy characters and some fun twists. However, while I enjoyed the story line, I felt like it was dragging a little. I also wish the ending was more shocking. Overall, not bad but not my fav.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫I loved this book. It’s about a group of friends in college. All of them are drawn to one of the girls, but, gradually, they all become suspicious of her. Then, a murder happens 👀
Def Recommend.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced copy of the ebook in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars. This was a slow burn thriller, about young adult collage age friendship and life in college. I liked it, but kept wondering when the reveals would occur. It was overall, a fun read.

Margot and Eliza are besties forever, they do everything together and don’t keep secrets from one another, until one does, and it impacts their friendship forever. A year later, Margot is starting college and history begins to repeat itself….

Loved the dark academia. Loved the twists. Loved the unlikeable characters (but there were A LOT to keep track of). Fun thriller.

After losing her best friend in a tragic accident the summer before college, Margot heads to college in small town south Carolina excited to start fresh, but still mourning her best friend she was supposed to room with. While there she befriends Lucy, an outgoing and mysterious girl in her hall, whom she eventually moves in with sophomore year, along with two other girls.

💕I loved Willingham's book A Flicker In The Dark so I had high hopes for this one, and it was pretty good! Slower in parts and definitely more character driven than action packed, but I felt it was super relatable which was fun in a sense. If you went to college in a small town, that was very traditional with frats and off campus housing, (S/O Miami of Ohio!) living with friends in run down little houses you rent and become besties with your neighbors through the back yard, you'll be able to picture this book perfectly. Willingham took al lot of this from her own experience at UGA and it really came to life with this book and brought me back to my college days and fond memories.

✨It flashes back to past and present, where you find out more about Margot in high school, and present day where there is a murder and a person missing. It was so different from her first two books and felt very YA/new adult. It was on the slower side but overall, I was interested to find how it ended. Wrapped up nicely with enough twists to surprise you but not give you whip lash from too much happening at once.

⭐️Not going on the favorites list but I still definitely recommend!
--THANK YOU NETGALLEY FOR THE ADVANCED COPY!!

I’m a HUGE fan of Stacy’s first two books! They are some of my very favorite thrillers. Unfortunately this one did not live up to those two.

The first 60% of this book is slow. It picks up in the last 40% and REALLY picks up in the last 25%. There were a lot of twists I didn’t see coming. So I settled at 3.5 stars between the two different parts. I was hoping for more creepiness and mystery in the first half and it was lacking. It felt very YA, probably mostly because it was about girls at college living next to a fraternity house.

I’m still a huge Stacy fan and can’t wait for her next one but this one a bit of a disappointment for me. 😕

This book is gripping from the beginning, and fans of Ruth Ware and Gillian Flynn will enjoy it. After her best friend since kinder, Eliza, dies in a freak accident, Margot heads of to Rutledge by herself where she finds she doesn't seem to fit in. At the end of freshman year, she's approached by cool girl Lucy, asking her to be the 4th in their fraternity adjacent house. Margot can't believe her luck...why her? But Lucy is an enigma to say the least, with lots of secrets, narcissistic behavior, and manipulating like no other. Even her "friends" seem to keep her at arms length. Then, freshman Levi joins the fraternity and Margot can't believe it. The same Levi who became friends ( or maybe more) with Eliza right before she died is not here at Rutledge? And Lucy is intrigued. Who is Lucy really? What is she hiding? And is Margot who she claims to be? How far would you go to protect the ones you love? Lie? Cheat? Steal? Murder? Told in "before" and "after" timelines, this book is a page turner with twists galore. Not quite 5 stars for me, but more than 4!

Thank you NetGalley, McMillian and McMillian Audio for this ARC and ALC.

Stacy Willingham has a gift when it comes to integrating twists that the reader would not necessarily see coming. In her new release, Only If You're Lucky, she delivers yet another surprising twist that lovers of the thriller genre expect. Though the mood of this novel was at times reminiscient of young adult, a genre that is not one of my favorites, the true expertise of this author's plot construction comes at the end of the novel, where there are not one, but multiple twists. Bravo, Willingham.

This was a fun one. I enjoyed the small college setting and how very different the characters were. The codependency of the roommates was very realistic. The character development was strong - Willingham captures the impulsivity of young adults so well. Karissa Vacker narrates so I know I wanted to listen on audio as I find her audiobooks wonderful. She, as always, did a fabulous job so I highly recommend the audio for this one!

I struggled so much with this one. I ended up having to quit 10% in. It felt very YA and there was just tooooooo much description. I wanted to get to the point so bad.

The story is a winding story told both from two different times. I was intrigued right from the start. The pacing was good as the story unfolded. The book was interesting, and I was absorbed in the story wanting to know what happened next. I didn't want to put it down.
At times, I thought I had it figured out, but I was still shocked by the way the story was resolved. Definitely well worth the read. This is definitely an author I will watch for in the future. I received an advance copy from NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.

𝟮.𝟱 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗦 𝗥𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗗 𝗗𝗢𝗪𝗡
Gets a bit messy (in a good way) towards the end, but was mostly boring the whole way through.

As always, I love Stacy Willingham’s prose. I feel like she has the most well-written thrillers on the market in terms of eloquence. However, this book was super lacking when it came to the plot. The plot of “who is responsible for the death of my best friend?” in the BEFORE timeline and “where is Lucy?” in the AFTER timeline were both so uninteresting to me. I just felt the stakes couldn’t have been lower for such a high stakes type of situation, because it dragged the entire time. I should have cared about both mysterious aspects, but I was just waiting for something to happen for most of the book.

Really enjoyed this one! Alternates from past to present, leaving you with lots of questions from one chapter to the next. I definitely did not predict that ending!

This one was a bit too slow paced for me! The last 15% was good + I enjoyed the twist but overall I couldn’t stay invested.

3.5 stars. I loved so much about this: the campus setting, dual timelines, and short chapters. A few things didn’t work for me. It felt dragged out and repetitive. I wanted more from the ending to make the slow burn worth it. The twists you could see coming and there was too much of an information dump at the end. I do enjoy Willingham’s writing style and enjoyed this overall, it just wasn’t my favorite of hers.

Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martins Press for this eARC!

I will upload my review to Instagram on publication day.

I'll start off by saying that I'm a huge fan of Stacy Willingham and All the Dangerous Things was one of my favorite books of 2023, so I was incredibly excited to read her newest book Only If You're Lucky.

What starts off as a typical dual timeline story, you're slowly walked through everything that's happened to a group of 4 girls as they start their sophomore year of college. Lucy, the charismatic one, Nicole, the shy one, Sloane, the cautious one and Margot, the nice one. How did these four women go from best friends to Lucy's disappearance and the rest of the girls speaking to the police about a murder?

Margot is our main character, and she is reeling after the death of her high school best friend, when she starts her freshman year of college. She's had a boring first year and looking for something exciting when Lucy invites her to live with the other two girls for their sophomore year. What starts out as a way to break out of a rut turns into a year she, or the rest of the women, will never forget.

While there are times I wanted to yell at some of the characters for making awful decisions, it's easy to understand the motives when you remember that they're all recent high school graduates. Let's be honest, I think everyone has made some bad decisions early in their college years, so that part actually felt very realistic.

I was able to pick a couple of the twists throughout, but there were some big twists that kept me engaged. Once again Stacy Willingham has crafted an engaging and exciting story that you won't be able to put down.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and St Martin's Press / Minotaur books for this ARC. All opinions are my own.