4.5 stars!!

Four Found Dead is such an exciting book; it follows the plot of 7 co-workers on the end of their last ever shift at a closing cinema, except right as they’re about to head out of this hell-hole forever, strange things start happening and by the end of the night, not all of them will make it out.

From start to finish, Richards had me gripped onto the book itching for the next page, I could simply not stop reading. She has crafted such an exciting and vivid thriller, I truly felt like I was escaping death with these characters. It is fast-paced, enthralling, and smart. The only thing stopping it from being a 5 star for me was the lack of more character depth and background for all the other characters. I wish there was more of an explanation about Clayton, more to discover about him. However, that did not take much away from the reading experience. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and will be recommending it to so many people.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for granting me an ARC of this book.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Fire for providing me with a free eARC of this book for me to review.

“Maybe we all have to make peace with that night, with the fact we’re here and they’re gone.”

I'm not sure I want to give this book a full 3 stars for several reasons.

First of all, the central part of the book is a bit boring, I expected to stay glued to the pages but unfortunately it didn't happen. This is due to the fact that in my opinion the tension is not perceived much when it should be the crux of the book.

Also I didn't like the ending, in the sense that I found the killer's motivations a bit trivial (I don't want to give spoilers) and predictable. Otherwise it was the only part where I really felt the tension.

Despite everything I really liked the writing style and I also really liked the protagonist Jo, who despite being in a dangerous situation managed to bring out the courage and act with lucidity despite the experiences of the past.

I have read a few other books by Natalie D. Richards that I definitely liked a lot better than this one. I didn't find it as gripping as I was hoping. This was unfortunately a DNF book for me. I tried to finish it but I couldn't stay invested in it :(

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the opportunity to read this ARC, nonetheless!

So bummed about this one!

I've loved some of Natalie's previous books, so I was pretty disappointed by this one. I was expecting a serial killer (a stranger) to arrive at the theater and trap them in, hunting them down one by one while they tried to figure out who they were and why they were doing this. But there is no real mystery--no real twists, just a very prolonged game of hide and seek with a painfully caricatured killer. The killer is my main source of frustration--from the very first chapter, he's over-the-top ridiculously volatile, and I couldn't take him seriously. Also the scene with the wife--which supposedly kicks off things--was extremely exaggerated.

There was next to no description of the characters, so I had no idea how old anyone was for a long time (apparently Clayton was 30, which I didn't know until one of the last chapters). The main character seeing Clayton's gun within the first few pages and freaking out about it before anything actually happened was also profoundly frustrating to me--her backstory helped some, but there was definitely the "anyone owning a gun = MURDERER" vibes. Even though she was convinced he was going to go on a rampage and kill everyone (which we had no indication of, other than that he was a jerk who happened to have a gun), she didn't tell any of the others until 20 or 30% of the way through the book??

I don't know. Sadly not a fan of this one, though I really thought I would be!

Still grateful to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc!

-A

Thank you Netgalley & SOURCEBOOKS Fire for an eARC of Four Found Dead by Natalie D. Richards in exchange for an honest review! I really enjoyed Richards’ Five Total Strangers, so was looking forward to diving into this one prior to pub day.

The book follows 7 coworkers at Riverview Theaters on its last night remaining in business. The movie theater is part of a defunct shopping mall going through major construction, and the group can’t wait for their shift to end so that they can go out and never see the place again. However, their final shift starts to take a dark turn rather quickly - turning from suspicion to outright terror when one of the group turns up dead.

How can they survive the night when they can’t get out of the building? And why is this happening?

This was a well paced read, and after getting over an initial lull at the start I found myself turning the pages and finishing this one up within the span of a few hours. The concept of the plot intrigued me as it is a bit unique (once you read you’ll see how/why), but reading it felt like a lot of the other teens-trying-to-survive YA tropes that we’ve been seeing a lot of in the genre. This made it predictable to some extent, but overall an enjoyable YA thriller read that gets pretty dark.

I was here for this novel when I read “dead mall” but I have to admit that what was supposed to be a thrilling chase, with teens turning up dead left and right, just wasn’t the case.

<i>Four Found Dead</i> begins on the final night at the Riverview Theater. Connected to the closed shopping mall, thats currently under construction, the Riverview has just locked it's doors and the teen employees are all closing up shop for the last time when an altercation occurs with the manager and a strange woman. That's when Jo, our main character, spots the telltale sign of a gun shoved behind the managers shirt. And then they begin to die.

Unable to exit through the locked doors from the theater, the group of teens enter the mall and spend the rest of the book trying to find shelter and alternative exits while being hunted by their boss.

No one really knows WHY their boss is on a rampage and a lot of the book is spent clambering over stairs, in the dark and sprinting to and fro, which I did my fair share of skimming. I felt that the novel could have been better told by using multiple perspectives and less time talking about what the group PLANNED on doing/talking about their plans. I also felt the twist was an easy catch to spot for any reader and not really a surprise. 2.5 stars

Natalie Richards nailed the suspense in this one! The pacing was masterful, and I kept having to remind myself to lower my shoulders down from next to my ears and I raced through the pages.

While I didn't connect with any of the characters, I did see elements of typical teenagers in each of them. Their reactions seemed authentic, even if sometimes the dialogue was a little forced. Utilizing an abandoned mall opened up lots of possibilities for story twists, and it was interesting to see what various storefronts offered in the way of challenges and opportunities.

At the end, I didn't quite grasp how the killer made a leap to actually feeling like they had to kill multiple people, so the backstory there fell a bit flat for me, but I definitely think this is a solid YA murder mystery!

Overall: 4/5 stars

I'll tell my students about: death/murder, violence, blood/gore, language, trauma,

**Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcefire Books for the free ARC prior to publication. All opinions expressed are my own.**

A group of friends are getting ready to leave the movie theater in a closed down mall for the last time. An argument occurs and the lights go out. Terror strikes and a body is found. The doors are all boarded up and there’s no way out. They are trapped with a killer.We learn who the killer is very early on, which surprised me. Her books usually follow more of a "whodunnit" format, but it worked well in this. I think if the killer had been kept a secret, it would have detracted from the tense atmosphere Richards created.

This book was hard to put down. Every page was tense and filled with action. As it literally says in the title, four people end up dead. There are eight people at the start, so you are on edge the whole time, counting down, trying to figure out which characters will be left standing. This was a great spin Richards put on the novel.

i mean who does not love a good thriller and some tea ..thhis book i need time to re-read it .a fun thriller that you won't be able to put down. So glad I requested this one on Netgalley because I really enjoyed it! I raced through this in just a few hours. It was incredibly intense and stressed me out, definitely felt my own adrenaline pumping right alongside some of the characters..
Much appreciation to the author

I usually love a locked room mystery but unfortunately, this was more thriller and less mystery which sort of damped my enjoyment. From the beginning, you know who the murderer is, you just don't know who the victims are. It doesn't set up a super compelling mystery because the only person who you come to know a little is Jo, whose POV that we are in. All of the other characters are somewhat interchangeable and forgettable.

The villain also comes across as very cartoonish, which lowers the fear of being trapped in the mall with him. At no point does he seem like a realistic antagonist, he seems almost like a terminator who just keeps getting up to laugh maniacally for no reason. I also didn't quite understand why Jo was the main character when the others could have provided a more thematically cohesive journey that more directly impacted the plot.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lots to love about this one. The creep factor was definitely there. The pacing was spot on. The imagery was good. For me, the smaller cast of characters limited things a little, and there could have been a bit more fleshing out for some, bit overall, this had real page turning quality.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

So much to unpack here...sadly none of it is good. The plot had a great theme....rundown mall with creepy aesthetic. That's where it all goes wrong. It lost me with the massive amount of errors. There were places I had to read three or four times because there were repeated lines or added letters...and strangely, numbers. I normally don't factor these in to my reviews but it takes away from the story and that is deadly to me while reading. This goes a step beyond "unreliable narrator". By the time I finished the book, I was convinced I had read it wrong because the person narrating the story wasn't actually the person narrating the story 🤔 The whole story fell flat as did the characters. Also TW for age gap although the character involved was 16 which I'm aware is legal in most places, I still feel that it should be noted, especially since it is marketed as a YA. Also I want to point out that if I, as an adult, had this much trouble following because of the errors, I would imagine someone younger will experience it and possibly have an even harder time.

When Jo and coworkers close the doors to the theater for the last time, they never imagined they’d be locked inside with a killer.

Four Found Dead, by Natalie Richards, is a YA thriller and very hard to put down. The story has a slight slow start, but once the first body is found becomes incredibly fast paced. I felt so much anxiety for the charters trying to escape and stay alive, I was always wondering who could be next.

Definitely worth a read.

Thank you to Natalie Richards, NetGalley, and Sourcebooks Fire for the eARC.

I received a free ebook ARC from Sourcebooks Fire via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This YA thriller follows Jo as she closes up a defunct movie theatre on its last day of operation with her co-workers. The theatre is attached to an already belly up mall. An incident with their supervisor, Clayton, has them all on the run for their lives and unable to escape the mayhem.

I was anxious to read this because I’ve heard good things about the author. It read quick, but it did not have much depth. It could have benefited from multi-character viewpoints or more character development. It read like watching a horror movie, which is fine, but I read to really fall in love with characters. Overall, mindless entertainment, but ultimately forgettable.

A little slow to start this book then took off like a freight train and I found myself breathless and stressed along with the characters! After their coworker seems to become a murderer they remaining employees must try to get out of the abandoned, and locked up, mall to get to safety. It was a wild ride well worth the read!

It’s the last night at Riverview Theaters. The final guests have gone. In Natalie D. Richards’ “Four Found Dead,” Jo and her co-workers are spending the last hours of their final shift cleaning up and closing down. The end of their time at Riverview Theaters is bittersweet. They are a pretty tight crew, but are looking forward to moving on from a tedious job and a creepy boss. In quick succession, an unexpected visitor, a broken soda machine, and a power outage fray nerves. Then the bodies start piling up. Jo and her friends have to band together and use their wits to save themselves. Will they be able to outwit the one who wants them dead?

The story is fast-paced and full of “no, don’t go in there!” type moments. For the first third of the book there is a LOT of noise inside Jo’s head. It is reasonable as there are a number of triggers that have her reliving past trauma. Just as the noise and her fear become almost overwhelming, both recede and Jo finds her inner strength to push through an event she never thought she’d be part of. I would have liked a longer set-up to build the creepy-factor before the catapult into action. There are some funny comments about how people behave in horror movies.

This story would be great for teens who like thrillers.

Content warning: active shooter.

Thanks to NetGalley and SourceBooksFire for an advance reader’s copy in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Thanks so much NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire.

A movie theater in a now closed mall just showed its last shows. Jo and her coworkers are getting ready to close for the last time and will head to IHOP for pancakes. The power goes out and the manager has left with the keys. They are trapped and have just discovered the body of one of their coworkers.

This book was quite a thrill! I didn't know what was going to happen and was on the edge of my seat the whole time. The one thing that I wanted more of was a conclusion with aftermath and a better explanation. It would have made this story that much better. Otherwise, this was an unpredictable thriller that is a must read!

Reviewed for NetGalley:

A group fo coworker and friends are finishing up their last shift at a closing mall theater when they come across a body. Now they have to fight to stay alive, trapped in the theater with the killer.

Decent thriller plot, just having a hard time with the uptick in dead teeangers and fighting to stay alive themes lately.

This book was a page turner from beginning to end. Warning this book has active shooter situations so if that triggers you I would not go further. A group of teens work in a movie theatre attached to a run down mall being remodeled. The manager is quite upset and all the employees want to do is hurry up and get out - until things go south when his girlfriend visits at close and things start to just go downhill from there. Highly recommend. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I went into this book knowing very little about what to expect, aside from knowing a group of teenagers get trapped inside a closed for renovation shopping mall and some level of mayhem follows. This sounded like such a nostalgic throwback to the YA thriller books of my teen years, so I had to wade back into the YA genre and give this story a go.

This book ended up being exactly what I'd hoped it would be: a fun, action packed YA thriller with a tense cat and mouse chase thru a dark, closed down shopping mall, a cast of likeable characters, and a steady balance of suspense throughout the book.

Overall, an entertaining, fast read that's perfect for anyone looking for a nonstop thrill ride taking place in a blast from the past setting. I enjoyed every minute of this one!

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing a copy for me to read and review.