Thank you Net Galley for the ARC! Y'all are going to eat this one up when it hits the shelves in January!!!
I will always read anything Stacy Willingham writes forever and always- she is so talented.

This is everything I love in a thriller- Southeastern US college setting, so many twists and turns and complex layers, unreliable characters... I also really love the Jekyll and Hyde parallels! Such a quality thriller.

I loveddddd this novel! It was right up my alley and a great mystery/thriller for me! Set in a small college town, featuring crazy parties, new friendships, and a place to start completely new. This book left me guessing from the start - when I thought I knew I really didn’t😂 This book was bingeworthy and I loved the story. Stacy is becoming one of my favorite authors! Five stars no doubt.

Only If You’re Lucky by Stacy Willingham is a book that I was extremely excited to read but after finishing I felt that this fell into the pile of other southern mystery novels and while Willingham is a great writer, she never meets the level of other authors like Ashley Winstead or Riley Sager.

WAIT STOP, I loved this. Big Stacy fan here. I loved both of her other books. This one was very different. It felt more fast paced to me compared to the first two.

This was based off college aged students. It is also told in two timelines which I am a huge fan of. Margot heads to college the summer after her best friend was murdered. She is trying to reinvent herself, remove herself from the past. Then the guy next door digs up her past while she is trying to make new friends. One of her new roommates, Lucy, has a troubled past herself. Margot finds out that it is possible to love and hate Lucy at the same time. What is she hiding?

This is a solid 4.5 star for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, Stacy Willingham, and a publisher who shall not be named until they take responsibility for their actions. Speak up. Readers want accountability. Do better.
Publication Date: 01/16/24

The highly anticipated 2024 release from Stacy Willingham follows Margot as she struggles to get over the death of her best friend, Eliza. At the end of her first year at Rutledge, Margot meets and befriends Lucy, Sloane, and Nicole who seem to pull her out of her shell though their friendship turns out to be more than she bargains for.
Filled with college drama, friendship, and secrets, Only If You're Lucky is a slow burn with a YA feel. I enjoy Stacy Willingham's writing style, but for me this one lacked the intrigue that I was expecting. It was a bit predictable, and I didn't feel any real connection with the characters.
Overall, I give Only If You're Lucky 3 stars.
I would like to thank Minotaur Books and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Stacy Willingham makes a bid for the young adult audience with her latest thriller, Only If You're Lucky, coming out January 16. Drawing on her own college experience at the University of Georgia when she lived off campus with roommates, she sets the novel in Rutledge, South Carolina, but uses the house she rented from a fraternity complete with a shed in the backyard connecting the two properties. The rest of the story is fiction.

With such episodes as undergrads playing spin the bottle and beer pong and drinking until they pass out, the story will appeal to a younger audience than Willingham’s previous books, A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things. The story flows through two timelines called Before and After with the dividing point being the murder of a student.

Margot is a quiet young woman plagued by grief over the death of her best friend Eliza after their high school graduation. At the end of her freshman year at Rutledge, a friend named Lucy invites Margot to join her and Lucy’s friends Nicole and Sloane in renting an off-campus house owned by the fraternity next door. Sloane is sarcastic, Nicole is nice, and Lucy has a mysterious air about her.

While the four coeds seem to coalesce, in the middle of their sophomore year, one of the fraternity pledges, Levi, is found dead after going into the woods with Lucy during a frat-sponsored camping trip. Shortly thereafter, Lucy goes missing. Who killed the frat wannabe and what has become of Lucy? The answers to those two questions are multi-layered and shocking.

Stacy Willingham, a former copywriter and brand strategist for various marketing agencies, now devotes herself to writing fiction full time. She earned her BA in Magazine Journalism from the UG and MFA in Writing from the Savannah College of Art & Design. Her debut novel, A Flicker in the Dark, was optioned for film by Oscar-winning actor Emma Stone. Willingham lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with her family.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting December 6, 2023.

I would like to thank Minotaur Books, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

I am normally a fan of Stacy Willingham and enjoyed her previous book. This one simply didn't hit the mark. I almost gave up part way through because I found it slow and tedious. It's a great premise for a book, but the characters were very unlikable and there just wasn't any bang for my buck. 2.5 stars

DNF at 65%

Thank you for the opportunity to read Stacy Willinghams latest novel. After loving A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things, I was very excited about a campus thriller. However, I found it to read very childish, and found the main character to be annoying. The constant partying and drugs was very monotonous, and I ended up DNFing around 65%. After over half the book, I still was unsure what the main plot points were.

Again, thank you to NetGalley and St Martins Press for the advanced copy of Only if You’re Lucky. I will continue to support and read Stacy’s work in the future, but this book was not for me

After A Flicker In the Dark and All the Dangerous Things, I was Stacy Willinghams number one fan. She has such a gift of sucking you into the story within the first couple pages and this one was no exception. It was a tad more predictable than her first two but I still loved it; it was such a fun one to read and definitely brought me back to my own college experience. Thank you to @stmartinspress , @netgalley and @stacywillingham for my copy!

Only If You're Lucky wasn't a typical thriller for me. More of a slow burn to see how the pieces of the puzzle would unravel. Margot is a shy young freshman in college, when one of the most enigmatic and popular girls, Lucy selects her to be her new friend and housemate. Margot is thrust into a new life of girl friendships and this quad of girls live in a house next to a fraternity. She has always been in the shadows, but now a new world of college has been opened for her. When a fraternity member is found murdered and Lucy is missing, Margot and the remaining roommates must unravel the mysterious Lucy's past to find out what happened.

I enjoyed this book, but it wasn't my favorite of Willingham's. I found the beginning to be pretty slow and kept waiting for something exciting to happen. Around 2/3rds of the way through the book really picked up in intensity. Overall I found the ending very satisfying, even if it took awhile to get there. Great read!

Thank you to Minotaur and NetGalley for granting me a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

3.5 stars, rounding up

I am going to be honest, I was thiiiiis close to DNFing this one. It was taking me SUCH a long time to get into and I wanted something faster paced, but as with everything Stacy Willingham writes the way the little details come together in the end? Chef's kiss. Made this whole thing worth it.

Margot lost her best friend just months before heading to college, and now she's going through the motions. Sure, she has her roommate to hang out with, but for the most part she's still grappling with tough feelings of loss. When she meets magnetic Lucy Sharpe and enters her inner circle, things start changing for Margot. She no longer wants to be passive, she's ready to be more bold.

But when secrets start to come out about Lucy, the past Margot is finally ready to leave behind stirs back up again. And though Lucy has a big personality, she is not at all who she says she is.

The first 60%ish percent of this took me entirely too long to read. Margot is somewhat unbearable - just a moody, sad college kid letting everyone else dictate her life. It's a slow college student novel, and there really didn't feel like there was much action here.

I absolutely love Stacy Willingham and I think I was comparing this too much to how quickly I read A Flicker in the Dark. Yeah, yeah, I should treat each book as its own, but sometimes that is hard!!

I was starting to wonder when things would start to click - around 65% the pieces started to come together a little clearer and I was hooked. I'm not sure how you improve the first part other than just making the pacing of having some details spilled sooner, but it definitely takes a while to get to the point where you don't want to put it down.

The first half of this I would've rated 2 stars if I am being 100% honest. The second part leans closer to 5 stars, and the ending is honestly pretty satisfying. I skewed my final rating to 3.5 - if you can get through the slowness of the intro, the end makes it all worth it!ARC Review! Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the advanced copy of Only If You're Lucky in exchange for my honest review. | 3.5 stars, rounding up

I am going to be honest, I was thiiiiis close to DNFing this one. It was taking me SUCH a long time to get into and I wanted something faster paced, but as with everything Stacy Willingham writes the way the little details come together in the end? Chef's kiss. Made this whole thing worth it.

Margot lost her best friend just months before heading to college, and now she's going through the motions. Sure, she has her roommate to hang out with, but for the most part she's still grappling with tough feelings of loss. When she meets magnetic Lucy Sharpe and enters her inner circle, things start changing for Margot. She no longer wants to be passive, she's ready to be more bold.

But when secrets start to come out about Lucy, the past Margot is finally ready to leave behind stirs back up again. And though Lucy has a big personality, she is not at all who she says she is.

The first 60%ish percent of this took me entirely too long to read. Margot is somewhat unbearable - just a moody, sad college kid letting everyone else dictate her life. It's a slow college student novel, and there really didn't feel like there was much action here.

I absolutely love Stacy Willingham and I think I was comparing this too much to how quickly I read A Flicker in the Dark. Yeah, yeah, I should treat each book as its own, but sometimes that is hard!!

I was starting to wonder when things would start to click - around 65% the pieces started to come together a little clearer and I was hooked. I'm not sure how you improve the first part other than just making the pacing of having some details spilled sooner, but it definitely takes a while to get to the point where you don't want to put it down.

The first half of this I would've rated 2 stars if I am being 100% honest. The second part leans closer to 5 stars, and the ending is honestly pretty satisfying. I skewed my final rating to 3.5 - if you can get through the slowness of the intro, the end makes it all worth it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the advanced copy of Only If You're Lucky in exchange for my honest review.

ARC - I have loved Stacy’s other books and was excited to receive an ARC for her newest however this one was not my favorite. I truly felt the first half was tough to read, boring and just too many words/descriptors. I felt like so much was repeated over and over through the book and had me skimming for new information. I did like it more towards the end but I wish the whole book flowed that well.

I have been a fan of Stacy Willingham since I first read her debut novel A Flicker in the Dark and her subsequent release All the Dangerous Things.

If you've read her previous two books Only If You're Lucky will be a bit of a surprise as Willingham changes directions. For one, Only If You're Lucky takes place primarily in a college setting as we follow our main character Margot during her freshman and sophomore years in college. Margot is in a state grief after her best friend tragically dies at the end of her senior year in high school. In an attempt to get outside of her comfort zone for once, she decides to room with three strangers for her college sophomore year. Things go sideways when a fraternity boy living next door is murdered and one of her roommates is missing.

I will admit this is not my favorite book by Willingham; however, it was still an engaging read. It is a slow burn mystery filled with morally gray, borderline unlikeable characters. You will find short chapters that alternate from past to present as we learn about the death of Margot's best friend and about the current investigations. Similar to her previous works, you can expect Willingham to sprinkle in social commentary about the themes in the book. In this particular case there are conversations about human nature and the duality of good vs evil and how those manifest in a person. There is an exploration of friendships, especially those that feel all-consuming, and those that inspire jealousy, possession and perhaps even murder.

Willingham does an incredible job laying down the foundation of the mystery. It's one of those books where details matter as she begins to unravel all of the clues she's laid out for you.

I'd recommend this to people who don't mind slower-paced reads filled with descriptive writing and unlikeable younger characters.

Thank you to Netgalley , St Martin's Press and Minotaur books for an electronic advanced reader copy of this book.

A slow burn mystery thriller, depicted in past and present timelines. This thriller is set within the college era, unraveling the intricacies of female friendships and discussing the abuse of fraternity hazing. Characters full of secrets, accusations, lies, truth or dare games, manipulation, and character ploys, this novel provokes the idea of what’s right and wrong, and what choices you’d make, if you knew there were no consequences. Full of characters that are not particularly likeable, this storyline kept pace with intriguing twists and enigma.

This novel is very different from Willingham’s previous works, but I enjoyed this one. It was quick to read, with short chapters, and I found myself invested in each character’s perception of the truth.

Thank you to NetGalley , St. Martins Press , and Minotaur Books for my gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

Another FANTASTIC novel by Stacy Willingham. An engaging story filled with twists, and turns, questionable whodunnit scenarios, and a jaw-dropping finale.
Stacy Willingham never ceases to amaze me with her ability to narrate a story so well, to have me guess maybe somewhat right, but wrong at the same time. The story itself draws in and grasps hold of the reader from the very beginning.
The story follows a young college-bound woman who had to face some dramatic, life-altering situations prior to attending. Once at college, her life turns upside down and an alternate reality occurs, for the better. Or so it seems.....
Many shady, questionable situations arise within the story, incriminating characters of awful things. It's all fun and games until someone winds up dead.
I highly recommend reading this novel upon release. If you are a fan of either of Stacy Willingham's other novels "A Flicker in the Dark" or "All The Dangerous Things," this new novel will not disappoint.

This book was so much fun! There were a lot of twists and turns and it really kept me on my toes. It also brought me right back to my college days. What a wild ride!

Only If You Are Lucky is my new favorite book by Stacy Willingham.
Margot has had a hard 2 years. She lost her best friend and cut herself off from everyone her freshman year of college. But now Margot is ready for a change. When Lucy asks Margot to be her 3rd roommate, Margot jumps at the chance. Everyone wants to be noticed by Lucy, and becoming part of her clique might be the change Margot needs.
But then halfway through sophomore year, one of the boy’s next door is murdered and Lucy goes missing. What secrets are hiding at this college campus?
I really liked this book about a popular girl and her group of friends in college. Everyone in the clique was very different, and they all had secrets they were hiding. I especially thought Lucy was interesting, mysterious and kind of creepy; she was just as addicting as she was to the characters in the book.
I did find some parts of the book unrealistic, particularly the end. Some events just don't statistically happen that often.
The book was told in two timelines from Margot’s point of view - before and after someone dies. I thought this made the book refreshing and more intriguing.
The book was just so thrilling. The twists were not overkill, and it just fell into place perfectly in the end. I could not put the book down and I would definitely recommend this book to others.

This was a super dark and twisty campus thriller novel. The story circles around Margot, a shy, reserved girl going away to college and hoping to escape her old life. At the end of her first year she meets Lucy, who is charismatic , magnetic and dangerous. She quickly get enmeshed with Lucy and two other girls, who all become roommates. Slowly things start to unravel from here, and things are clearly not always what they seem. I loved the twists and turns in this one and it kept me on the edge of my seat and flipping pages. I thought it was a perfectly paced thriller and I loved it! Stacy Willingham is quickly becoming a favorite author of mine and I will read anything she writes!

Thank you to @netgalley, @stmartinspress and @stacywillingham for this advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review. Go get your preorders in for this one, out Jan 16, 2024.

ARC review! I loved the exploration of female friendship and all of the factors that contribute to relationship dynamics, especially during the college years. Intrigue was VERY high; I wanted to know how everything connected which kept me picking the book back up.

The time jumps got confusing. I would have appreciated reading the plot sequentially to fully immerse myself in the story. Some plot twists were expected.

If you are a fan of the horror/crime movie The Roommate from 2011, I would highly recommend this read! Overall I had a good time.

🌟🔥 5 STAR BOOK REVIEW 🔥🌟 featuring “Only If You’re Lucky” by Stacy Willingham!

Margot’s first year at college is nothing like the one she pictured with her bestfriend Eliza. She ends up going alone and spends the year studying and keeping to herself. Eliza was the outgoing one who always pushed Margot out of her comfort zone. Without her, Margot feels lost, alone and uncertain. That is UNTIL she meets Lucy at the end of the year. And then EVERYTHING changes.

Margot agrees to move into a house with three girls who are complete strangers. Lucy is the popular “it” girl and Margot cannot understand why she was chosen as the lucky one to move into a house with them. Soon she gets introduced to the REAL college life: late nights, fraternity parties, drinking, drugs and being totally rebellious. Margot starts to feel like she belongs to something since Eliza … until a boy in the frat house next door ends up murdered and Lucy goes mysteriously missing without a trace 🤫

BRAVO to Stacy Willingham on yet another outstanding thriller! The dark academia vibes, the dangerous side of female friendships and the sinister effects of jealousy all come together perfectly 🫶🏻

Thank you kindly to @stacyvwillingham @minotaur_books @stmartinspress @netgalley for my advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review! This stunner releases on January 16th, 2024! If you loved “In My Dreams I Hold a Knife” or “The It Girl”, then you need this one on your TBR!!

“What we did together is tattooed across all of us now, a permanent mark like a friendship bracelet tied right around our wrists. Like a broken heart drawn in sunscreen, only while when we stick together. In time, it may fade but it’ll never truly be gone - because if one goes down, we all go down, which might be the most steadfast act of friendship I’ve ever even known”. - Only If You’re Lucky