I really enjoyed the author's first two books so was very excited for this one, especially as I love academic settings and complicated female relationships. Lots of complex themes explored here - belonging, envy, loyalty and betrayal, the lies we tell, the secrets we keep, the facets of us we allow others to see (and those we keep hidden), and ultimately, how well can we ever truly know someone else? There's also the unnerving knowledge that what happens to these girls could easily have happened to any of us who liked a good party while at college.

Synopsis (from Netgalley, the provider of the book to review)
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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.
I love Stacey’s books and really enjoyed the time I spent with Lucy Sharpe and her devious, deceitful friends. This book will make you question who you live with and their motives and the problem with the book was that I got so into it that I had to keep reminding myself to breathe!!! A superb ending will make you wait breathlessly (ha ha) for her next excellent novel.

HIGHLY recommended.

#shortbutsweetreviews

A typical college story - 4 friends living in a house off campus next door to a frat. Except in this case, more than one of them is hiding trauma.

Margot is still grieving the death of her best friend and she is more than happy grab the invite to move into the house. Her new roommates are fun party girls and she starts to forget what has plagued her since she started college. But Lucy Sharpe is much more than what she seems - a bright shiny sun in which everyone else just revolves. It isn't long before it seems that Margot may have gotten just too close to the sun.

This twisty thriller is completely believable and utterly breathtaking. If you lived the party life at school, you know that what happens could have so easily happened to you (or me).
#STmartins #Minotaur #StacyWillingham #Onlyifyouarelucky

Stacy Willingham does is again! "Only if You're Lucky" is another thrilling page-turner from an author who always delivers.