Only if You’re Lucky
Pub date: 1/16/24
⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was so excited for our February pick for @thrilllersbythebookclub.mke
This book definitely felt more like a mystery than thriller as it was so slow!
I did like the dark academia vibes and did like the ending. I just felt like it was incredibly slow and was bored until the last 25% of the book. There was a lot of college drama! This was entertaining enough but doesn’t compare to her first two books. All The Dangerous Things is my favorite by far. I look forward to what Stacy writes next!!

Thank you @netgalley and @stmartinspress @minatourbooks for this eARC in exchange for my honest review

A Flicker in the Dark was one of my 2023 5 star reads, so, when I receive the ARC for Only If You're Lucky, I knew I'd be in for a treat.

While her books are mysterious and suspenseful, Willingham is always able to intertwine coming of age aspects that make her books unputdownable, and Only If You're Lucky stays true to that.

With alternating time-lines that kept me hooked, and the just one more chapter craveability, Stacy Willingham has done it again and secured her spot as one of my favorite authors. I cannot wait for her next read!

Highly recommend this for thriller/mystery lovers and fans of Jennifer Hillier and Riley Sager.

4.25/5

This is my second read from this author. I like her style. I like the pacing. I don't usually connect with the characters, but there's enough entertaining tension that I keep going when I usually wouldn't with other people. So I'm always going to give credit for that.

Did I like Lucy and Margot? Meh. Not particularly, but I did finish and am glad that I did.

Willingham is a twister, so it's worth a read. 3.6, rounded.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I really enjoyed this book! I kind of think of it like the equivalent of reality tv but in thriller form - not for everyone, but great for someone like me who gobbles drama up!

Margot was supposed to leave for her freshman year of college with her best friend, but when Eliza passes unexpectedly that summer, Margot is forced to go alone. A loner until she’s adopted by “cool girl” Lucy, Margot starts to hang with the it crowd. When people start to end up dead, you’ll be left not knowing who to trust.

A thriller told in alternating storylines, you’ll get to know Margot and her friends while you’re transported back to college. A great book for anyone looking for a quick thriller!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for a fair review.

I've previously really enjoyed Stacy Willingham's work. While this one fell a bit shorter than her first two novels, I think it had a lot to do with me/my interests than the story itself (as i feel pretty removed from college life). I think it was a straightforward slow burn campus thriller with an interesting twist.
Thank you so much to St. Martin's Press for the ARC

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.

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As a big fan of Willingham, I was so pleased with this new and different novel! A deviation from their usual style, this was still as engrossing as her others. I really thought Margot was so interesting and the entire novel kept me guessing what was going on! Willingham has a way of describing and characterizing women in a way that is always refreshing and new! I always enjoy their books because of that. I need to reread with the audio because Karissa Vacker has my heart. <3

This was disappointing and kind of boring and confusing. Initially, I got sucked right in, curious about the pull Lucy has on people and the events that followed. But early into the book, it started dragging, it felt like nothing was really happening, and I wasn't getting any answers about Lucy or Levi. Everything felt repetitive for at least 70% of the book. Finally toward the middle we started getting action, before it got repetitive again, and then we got answers in the final few chapters of the book.

I don’t think I gel with Willingham’s writing style, as I was not a fan of how Margot’s internal monologue slipped between distant past, recent past, and present, since Margot was constantly remembering things that happened in the distant past and relating it to her current situations. The presentation of the story got confusing because the chapters were only labeled “Before” and “After” (as in before and after Levi was murdered), but the distant past memories got thrown in both timelines and muddled the narrative. It took me a month and a half to finish because I wasn’t excited to pick it back up, and I might have DNF’d if it hadn’t been an ARC.

Overall I would not recommend this book, and since this is the second book of Willingham’s I’ve read, and both have been rated around 2 stars, I don’t think I will read any more of her books any time soon. Thank you Stacy Willingham, Minotaur Books, and NetGalley for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this one!
Told from Margot’s POV in multiple timelines, the way this story unfolded had me captivated.
Was Lucy trustworthy? Do the girls that Margot lives with have sinister motives? What’s going to happen with four young women living next door to a frat house?
So many ways this story could have unfolded, and it was a thrilling ride to see how it would all turn out.

I’m more years removed from the college residential life than I’d care to admit, but could easily remember how strange it felt to be living so closely with strangers. It’s an intimate and vulnerable situation to be in, and Willingham nailed it with this story.

Thank you @minotaur_books for sending me a @netgalley widget in exchange for my honest review that I am embarrassingly late to post.

Willingham is fast becoming my favorite thriller writer, her stories are so creative, with toxic friendships to murder. I read the story in just couple days as it kept me engaged the whole time, so many plot twists.

Lucy is one of those friends that you can't help but have this pull towards, she is bold, dangerous and make you come out of shell. Margot is the girl she decides she wants to be friends with. Margot is shy and plays it safe, so when Lucy ask her to live with her she can't say no and suddenly her life will never be the same again.

When her past comes back to haunt her, after a one of the fraternity boys from the house next door is murdered. Can she unravel her past to face what happened and why it all seems so familiar.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for copy of this story for my honest review.

I did enjoy this Stacy Willingham book more that her previous. I do think it was consistently dark in mood, so I might prefer to have a little break just to lighten up the story. I did not like any of the characters, but I believe that this was intentional. I did catch on to the twist midway through the story, but was not bothered by this. I did not like the boyfriend or the manipulation of other characters in the story - it almost seemed unnecessary. Overall, I enjoyed it!

Margot sets off to college minus her best friend who suddenly died the summer before. Margot feels lost and is mostly floating through her freshman year until Lucy, the popular girl, ask her to be roommates next year. Blindsided but also excited Margot agrees and sets off in the the popular circle her sophomore year. However, partway through their sophomore year Lucy vanishes and the roommates work with the police to uncover what happened to Lucky.

Another solid read by Stacy Willingham! I didn't rate it as highly as Willingham's other books but still a solid read. The ending was totally unexpected it just took a bit longer to get there.

I really loved the author’s previous books, so I was excited to hear that she has a new book. This book was very slow and difficult to get into and is easily my least favorite of her books. I didn’t really care for the main character and found it hard to continue. I did not enjoy this book but still look forward to Stacy’s future books.

Stacy’s books are always adjust solidly excellent . Dependable, no plot holes, believable twists. This one was the same. I devoured it and couldn’t wait to figure out how it ended. Good stuff! 3.5 stars

There were so many things to love about this book. The achingly beautiful character development, the inherent sadness of Margot, the deceptive interactions..I loved it.
I did figure out most of the twists, but not all of them, so am rating this book as a 4 star.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC

Only If You’re Lucky by Stacy Willingham – 4 Stars (Kindle, NetGalley)

I’ve heard great things about all of Stacy Willingham’s thrillers, but haven’t picked one up until this month! This was my first Kindle book finished in the new year in my initiative to scroll less, and it was great! I got it from NetGalley a while ago (my embarrassment and absolute insanity of a NetGalley backlist is an entirely different conversation – I’m just glad to say I’m taking baby steps). It’s a suspenseful story following a girl named Margot as she moves into a house full of new girls during her sophomore year of college. Pretty quickly it turns out that their house, and her roommate Lucy, are not what they seem to be. This one is definitely a slow burn, but I just had to know the ending. Lots of content warnings so do your research!

This is the third book from Stacy Willingham that I have read and I think this is the one I have liked the least. This is a slow burn where all the action happened in the last 1/8 of the book. This was a drawn out version of Pretty Little Liars meets Heathers. I think this is one that the movie would be better than the book.

The Plot: Margot, a college student, fixated on her deceased former best friend, Eliza, with an obsessive intensity. Now, her fixation has shifted to her current BFF, Lucy. However, when Lucy vanishes without a trace, Margot’s obsession escalates perilously, reaching a point of imminent danger.

The structure: This was written in a before and after type of telling. We get to find out a little of Margot’s history with Eliza. We get little snippets in the current of Lucy’s story.

I didn’t like this book until I got to the end. There was a great twist at the end. This would make a great movie but the book could have been 100 pages less. Margot’s story got to be a little boring.

I’ve enjoyed Willingham’s books in the past and will continue to pick her books up, but the premise of this one wasn’t my favourite. She did a great job of bringing the reader back to the days of being on the cusp of adulthood, trying to fit in and figure out who you are. It was a slow burn to the end, a lot of the internal dialogue of the main character felt repetitive to me and I wasn’t very invested by the time all was revealed.
Thank you St Martin’s Press for the copy through NetGalley in exchange for a review!

I love a good dark academia/campus thriller but Stacy Willingham's latest fell a little flat for me. The story line dragged and the big reveal was a little convoluted for my taste.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't expecting the twists in this novel's plot. The characters are flawed and believable. The ending is satisfying yet begs for a sequel.