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.

I absolutely loved this book. Stacy Willingham has quickly become an auto=buy author for me. While more of a character-driven slow-burn ride than her previous thrillers, Only if You're Lucky is still a smash gem that I recommend to all lovers of the twisty genre. Well done!

I had high expectations for this book after reading All the Dangerous Things but it took me 4 tries to start this book. The first 50% was a bit boring but the last 50% and ending did make up for it. I did see a bit of what was going to happen but ultimately was not what I was expecting in the end. Overall, this was a good thriller/mystery and I will continue to read more from Stacy Willingham
Thank you to NetGalley for this book for my honest review.

Decent read. Usually the flipped narrative, flitting back and forth doesn’t bother me but for some reason I struggled with it in this book.
I thought the author did a good job with the dialogue and character development, but I did find my interest flagging about half way in, it was a very slow build up toward and I think it could have been sped up some.

Thank you Minotaur Books, #partner for the advanced copy of Only If You’re Lucky in exchange for my honest review.

This is Stacy Willingham’s third book and of course I was thrilled to get my hands on it. I’ve loved her previous books and while I felt this one was a little different from her other two, I still enjoyed it and will be reading everything she writes.

This is a slow-burn mystery with a dark academia setting, which I loved. It explores friendships and how toxic they can be. While it has a bit of a YA feel due to the college setting, it also gives it that nostalgic feeling, too, if you’ve ever lived on a college campus, which I did many, many years ago! When the college drama turns deadly, the shocks start hitting, and I was instantly on alert. I loved how the dual timeline played out here and I found myself trying to work it out, but never quite getting there. This one has some twists I definitely did not see coming and that ending is one of the best endings I’ve read in a while! But be patient – the build-up to get there is so worth it!

This book is definitely a bit different from Willingham’s previous two books, more character-driven, but it is still good. And I love how in the author’s note, she shares the inspiration behind the book! Stacy Willingham is a trusted author and I will read anything she writes!

I have loved all of Stacy Willingham's books so far, so I was beyond excited to dive into this one. I really enjoyed it and it gripped my attention immediately. I will say I saw some of the twists coming, but there were some fun surprises too! Definitely a good read! ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press, the author, and NetGalley for the free gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

A creepy college-aged drama murder mystery with lots of twists had me hooked. This was a quick and fun binge finding out what happens in this creepy college house with tons of drama.

This was a slow burn but I think the tension added to the mystery of what was going on and it kept me hooked throughout to see what was going on.

This book kind of reminded me of Pretty Little Liars which was one of my favorite shows in high school so I think that's why I enjoyed it so much.

This is the sort of story that so expertly drops tidbits into the narrative that you almost don’t notice them until suddenly you realize what a clever, wicked, twisted story this is! Only If You’re Lucky focuses heavily on female friendship and obsession, but presented in a fresh and inventive story told in dual timelines that speed towards one another with a shocking conclusion.

Margot is a shy freshman at her South Carolina university when she meets Lucy Sharpe. Having tragically lost her best friend Eliza the summer after high school, Margot spends most of her first year of college hiding in her dorm with her roommate, Maggie (who couldn’t be a more supportive friend). At their first dorm meeting in the all-girls dorm, Lucy steps forward and pulls out a backpack with a case of beer. She’s beautiful, magnetic, and funny. Margot can’t help but be reminded of Eliza when she observes Lucy that first year.

As fate would have it, Margot is on the lawn at the end of her freshman year when Lucy approaches her and offers her the fourth bedroom in a house on campus she is renting with two friends. Margot immediately accepts, and after an awkward parting with Maggie (whom she was supposed to be rooming with the following year), Margot moves into the house with Lucy and two of their floormates—Nicole and Sloane.

Over the summer, Margot is happier than she can remember in a long time. Lucy is as charismatic in friendship as Margot observed from afar, Sloane is sarcastic and witty, and Nicole is kind and dating the president of the fraternity that owns the house they are renting. The four become close, spending days and evenings curled up on the couch together, going to parties with the boys from the fraternity, and partying after hours at a local bowling alley where Lucy works. Life is good, and Margot can almost forget the hole in her life where Eliza was.

Things are going great, until one of the fraternity boys next door is brutally murdered. The campus is in a frenzy, hounded by the press and police trying to find out what happened to the student. Meanwhile, Lucy has vanished without a trace. Are Lucy’s disappearance and the murder a terrible coincidence, or are they somehow linked?

This book was gripping from start to finish. The timelines alternate between the events of that summer and the beginning of sophomore year and the days after the murdered student is discovered and Lucy’s disappearance. After moving out of her dorm with Maggie, Margot becomes more alive but also more disturbed. Her friendship with Lucy comes with binge drinking, occasional recreational drug use, and hangovers that can last days. All of this lends a small air of unreliability to Margot, particularly in the present timeline.

Margot’s grief is overwhelming for her, and throughout the book we learn more about Eliza and her death, particularly when a student at the fraternity is someone linked to Eliza from their hometown. He’s the last person Margot wants to see and a constant reminder of Eliza. And he also happens to be the student who winds up murdered, adding another layer of complexity and suspicion to Margot. People in her life seem to wind up dead, it turns out.

At the same time, Margot is vulnerable and meek. She has a strong desire to fit in, but in her head she questions so much of what she does. Margot explains at one point how she always feels invisible, but when she was with Eliza (or later Lucy), she felt like someone. People noticed her and they could place her. The friendships in this book are exciting and dysfunctional.

This is a dark and alluring portrayal of female friendship, but at the same time I think many women reading this will find a glimmer they can relate to. Those days when you’re young and your friends are the most important and exciting thing in your world. The feeling that you don’t want things to change or worry that someone new will come in and tear your friendship apart.

The sweltering heat of the southern campus becomes an atmospheric backdrop for this tantalizing story. The events of the book and the setting feel like a nod to southern gothic—where flawed characters swarm around a disturbing and twisted story. Each page adds to the tension, and the story becomes almost oppressive as Margot spirals further and further away from who she is. From the beginning the reader knows this is all heading towards a murder and a disappearance. But so many other pieces of the story are missing.

At about two thirds of the way through the book, Willingham begins to drop twists in that pick up seemingly forgotten loose threads and twist them together. By the end of the book the reader has the whole interconnected web of secrets and buried truths. The ending is jaw-dropping and one that completely surprised me.

A gripping and tantalizing story of obsession, loyalty, friendship, and murder.

Love it or hate it, this one brings you right back to your college years. Drinking, bad decisions, dying to fit in, douchey frat guys, it’s got it all. Wanted to scream at the stupidity of the characters at times, but it also felt relatable in some respects.

Overall the story dragged on a little long, but the final third picked up the pace. Not much happed till that point in the book. Other than a couple far fetched details I struggled to get over, it was a fun read and provided for a very spirited book club discussion!

I have heard better things about her other two books so I have them on the list to read soon.

Thank you to Minotaur and NetGalley for my free copy

This book starts as a slow burn. A little too slow for me. I had a hard time getting into it but it did eventually build up to a faster pace. I think I had too high expectations after reading A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things .The characters were in college but the book felt like it leaned a little more in the YA direction. I think this may have been a not my cup of tea or wrong book at the wrong time for me. I do look forward . I do look forward to reading what Stacy WIllingham does next.

This was a fun dark academia novel with some twists that most of my book club definitely didn't see coming! The general consensus was that the beginning of the book moved a little slowly (though some of us prefer that style of thriller) and that the ending was more exciting.

An interesting point by one member was that she would have liked to see a little teaser at the beginning that "Lucy is not who she claims to be" with no further details to draw the reader in even more.

Though portions of the story seem far-fetched to me, I enjoyed the story overall. The writing was very descriptive and I could really picture the setting which added a lot. I am definitely interested in reading the author's backlist!

ONLY IF YOU’RE LUCKY started off pretty slow for me, but I wanted to keep reading to see where it was going. The pacing definitely picked up and I really liked the ending. I especially loved learning that the setting was based on the house Stacy lived at in college! 😯

I absolutely loved A FLICKER IN THE DARK and ALL THE DANGEROUS THINGS. This one ended up being my least favorite of the three, but her other two were really tough to beat because they ended up in my top books of 2022 and 2023. I love how different ONLY IF YOU’RE LUCKY is from the author’s previous books and we had a fun book club discussion about this one! Stacy is a very talented writer and definitely one of my auto-buy authors 🖤

Thank you to NetGalley, St.Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books for a digitalization ARC for my honest review.

3.5 ⭐️
I found this one took much longer than her previous books to build the suspense. The last part has several twists that I didn’t see coming. I kept waiting to see what the twists would be. I didn’t enjoy this as much as her previous ones, maybe because of the drunken party games and unlikeable characters.

I look forward to the next book by Stacy Willingham.

Thank you so much @Minotaur_Books for giving me this ARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased review (Release Date | 16 January 2024)

SYNOPSIS | Margot's best friend died three weeks after their high school graduation so she doesn't make a lot of friends during her freshman year at college as she mourns her. She is surprised when Lucy (a popular girl in her dorms) decides to befriend her & asks her to move into their off-campus house.

WHAT I LIKED:
- a compelling story of toxic friendships + obsession
- mini cliffhanger chapter endings made this perfectly bingeable
- last part of the book is packed with twists
- several mysteries to try & solve at once

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- the characters are young & clearly make stupid decisions on numerous occasions
- pretty slow start

I enjoyed Stacy Willingham’s previous books but I think Only If You’re Lucky is a miss for me. The first 50% of the story was a drag, the mystery did pick up later but it wasn’t enough to justify the slow pace and boring plot at the beginning.

Another fantastic book from Stacy Willingham! Her previous two were in my top books of the year respectively, so needless to say I went into this one with high hopes and expecting nothing less - and per usual she delivered. The college vibes in this one made me ache to go back to my college days while simultaneously wanting to punch my college self for all the dumb shit I did. It was a little on the longer side for a thriller which is what knocked my rating down a bit as I felt it dragged a teensy bit at parts, but still fantastic none the less!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the gifted copy.
Unfortunately, this book did not work for me. I loved the author's writing and description, I think she does an amazing job describing people and settings in a very unique way. However, the story, the plot, and the characters were boring to me and nothing we hadn't already read before. The twist was very underwhelming and the pay off wasn't worth it. This is the case of "it's me", mostly because I found that college kids getting drunk and partying during the majority of the book is not for me.
I would categorize this as a popcorn thriller, an easy read in between, or on vacation when you want to relax.

What an interesting read!!! This was an intense, suspenseful, read with such unreliable characters that kept me going back and forth on my guesses until the end. I was happily surprised that I didn’t have everything figured out, good, interesting characters, with a well written plot!

I love Stacy Willingham's style of writing, her attention to details, and just how creative she is over her last three books! She has instantly turned to an auto pick author for me. Even if I find that the story slows some to allow for setting the stage I never find it as dragging or boring I always enjoy how she writes it out like you are in the story as you're reading it!
Here we have Margot who thought she had life planned after high school going to college with her childhood best friend Eliza... until she died. Margot decides to still go ahead with their plan and heads to college alone and plays it safe the first year like Margot always has, that is until Lucy puts her in her sights. Margot is so enthralled by Lucy and how much she is like a version of Eliza she is drawn to her immediately and succumbs to Lucy's magnetic pull. Margot agrees to move in with Lucy, Sloane, and Nicole which turns her life upside down! Margot is stepping out of who she is and trying to be more like Lucy and more like how she thought Eliza always tried to push her to be.
What Margot doesn't know is all the secrets and lies that will be uncovered about Lucy, Sloan, Nicole, and even what she didn't know about Eliza!!
This was more slow burn than Willingham had in her last two books but I felt like there was more to unfold to the story, a lot more characters to develop. Told from Margot's POV with a before/after switch between. The suspense picked up in the last quarter and I do like how you are trying to solve the mystery throughout with the breadcrumb trail of clues.
I also like to read the author notes they leave at the end and I think that made me like this even more since it was based on some things of Willingham's life like the house all the girls lived in next to the frat house, and how she took some small aspects of her life back then and turned it into this great story! Thank you NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the gifted copy to review with my own thoughts! I would give this 4.5 stars!