Only If You're Lucky: A Novel

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.
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Readers say *Only If You’re Lucky* offers a compelling mix of drama and mystery, set against a dark academia backdrop that explores college friendship...
Only If You’re Lucky by Stacy Willingham will be available on January 16, 2024. A massive thanks to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the gifted copy!
Margot is a shy, quiet freshman girl at a small liberal arts school in South Carolina. Lucy is larger than life, a ringleader, bold, outgoing and even a bit dangerous. At the end of freshman year, Margot finds she is being singled out by Lucy to join Lucy and 2 other girls to live in an off-campus house for the summer and next school year. The 1st half of the book, Margot is constantly thinking about her bff who didn't come to college with her as planned because she dies 3 weeks after graduation. I grew bored with Margot always thinking about this friend and what should've been. Now suddenly Margot is living with 3 new friends and she and Lucy become extremely close. When one of the frat boys from next door is murdered and Lucy goes missing, I felt like the story and pace picked up. Why was Lucy so drawn to Margot? At times it read like a YA book but there were a few twists I didn't see coming. A bit unrealistic? Sure but still a good read-good character study about belonging/fitting in. Solid 3.5
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