Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

‘Only If You’re Lucky’ centers around Margot’s experiences during her freshman and sophomore years at Rutledge, a small-town Southern college. Still reeling from the sudden death of her best friend, Eliza, weeks after graduation, she spends most of her first year at college in a stupor. Margot sees the opportunity for change when she’s approached by Lucy Sharpe to live in a house together with two other friends for the next year. Margot, who has always been the sidekick, is drawn to the mysterious and vivacious Lucy like a moth to a flame.

But Margot can’t escape from her memories of the past when Eliza’s old boyfriend, Levi, who was the last person to see her alive, moves in to the frat house next door. Events slowly start to spiral out of control as Levi is murdered and Lucy disappears. This slow-burn thriller explores how the secrets we go to great lengths to hide will never stay buried, and that everyone has the capacity to be both a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde in the right circumstances.

As a fan of the author’s previous works, I was very excited to dig into this novel and I was not disappointed. Stacy Willingham is able to evoke the longing to fit in that is so common for college students. This was slower-paced than her other books, but she sets the scene so well with her descriptions of Margot’s college life and the friendships that develop between her and her housemates that I didn’t find the story to drag. You quickly realize that many things aren’t as they first seem, and the time jumps between the “before” and “after” of Lucy’s disappearance build tension beautifully. I didn’t see the ending coming the way it did but felt that it fit together well and was believable with how the story had been set up. Overall, another impressive suspense novel from an author that’s quickly becoming a favorite.

4.5 ⭐️ out of 5
Release Date: January 16, 2024

College is a time to reinvent yourself and Margot has more than one reason to be the new and improved version of herself especially after an uneventful freshman year. Then the cool girls bring her into their fold and she thinks this is her chance to be bold and different. But her friends are also trying to change and everyone has a past them and nothing is ever as it appears.

Best yet from this author! This instantly brought me back to my summers in a college town, where your friends create insular and sometimes claustrophobic worlds. Where it becomes difficult to seeing anything beyond your rundown rental apartment and those that share your space. The twists and turns kept me guessing—I stayed up all night to finish! Can’t wait to recommend to my book club.

Lucy has all the compelling charisma of a cult leader: you can’t help but watch her, & you have an illogical urge to do whatever she says - but then she goes missing right after her neighbor’s murder…

Margot spent her freshman year of college in South Carolina playing it safe & trying to process the recent death of her best friend. When Lucy, the “it” girl on campus, invites Margot to be her roommate along with two other girls, Margot decides she’s ready for a change & accepts. The summer between freshman & sophomore year cements the friendship between the four girls as it passes in a drunken haze at the beach & partying in the fraternity house next door (the chapter owns the house the girls live in so they essentially have frat boys for landlords). Sophomore year begins & the summer spell is broken, but Lucy’s mystique lingers, & in light of her eventual disappearance the haunting question remains: do you ever really know someone?

I had high hopes for this after loving Willingham’s A Flicker in the Dark & it did not disappoint! This story keeps you on your toes with the Before and the After timelines feeding you bits of information, & the author’s writing style is vividly descriptive. The ride-or-die friendship dynamic between the four girls is masterfully portrayed & I loved the recurring theme of the Jekyll & Hyde paradox.

Thank you to NetGalley & Minotaur for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

hank you Netgalley for the early copy of this amazing book! The characters draw you in from the first page and I love the setting of a college campus. The scenes were easy to imagine and very descriptive. I did not see the twist coming at all but was so pleased with it. Definitely recommend this book when it releases, it's another must read by Stacy Willingham!

A dark thriller centering on Margot, a college freshman grappling with the recent loss of her best friend, Eliza, who was supposed to start college with her. After spending most of her freshman year battling depression and coping with the loss of Eliza, Margot moves in with Lucy (who is eerily similar to Eliza), Sloan, and Nicole in a house owned and adjacent to a frat house. Margot is determined to start living her life again and live out Eliza’s dream, and she quickly becomes best friends with her roommates. When Levi, Eliza’s ex-boyfriend and the last person to have seen her alive, shows up at Kappa Nu (the fraternity), things get complicated…

The story alternates between past and present. Willingham navigated these timelines very well. The story did start out rather slow for me, but it was well worth the investment. The twists were so clever-I did not see them coming whatsoever but looking back they made perfect sense. Such a well written story that is well worth reading!

I didn't care for this slow-burn novel by Willingham. It felt very YA with unlikable characters. I found myself skimming through much of it.

Stacy Willingham is quickly becoming one of my favorite thriller authors. With Only if You’re Lucky, Willingham brings the reader a collegiate tale, one that weaves the devastating past of Margot, who is grieving the death of her best friend, and Lucy, a mysterious new friend of Margot’s with a puzzling past.

Margot and Lucy, along with two other friends, move into a house owned by the fraternity next door during sophomore year. Margot finds herself drawn to Lucy, who reminds her so much of her deceased friend, Eliza. When Levi, Eliza’s former boyfriend who was with her the night she died, shows up at the frat house as a new pledge, Margot is rattled. Past and present collide, and Margot starts to wonder if it’s not as random as she initially thought.

This book kept me guessing and I enjoyed the way Willingham kept upping the stakes. She plants seeds along the way that may be overlooked by the reader, but when everything comes together at the end, it’s so satisfying.

My only extremely minor complaint is that I don’t love the title. It doesn’t seem to fit the story. Such a minor thing though - I still highly recommend the read!

Thank you to @netgalley , @stacyvwillingham , and @minotaur_books for a free copy in exchange for my honest review.

This one is going to be a bit of a different read for fans of the author, but it's not a bad thing. Just go into it knowing it's not her previous novels. Give it the chance it deserves.

This one takes us in a before and after timeline with Margot, our MC. The beginning jumped around a little where I thought there were some errors in the timeline but I quickly realized it was my error. I really wanted more of the death of Eliza and not the little snippets we kept getting, but being patient paid off by the end.

Margot's grief over the loss of her best friend is so real. It seeps through every page. And sets her on the course of the book. I feel like Stacy Willingham really gets into the characters heads and writes what they go through so well. It's relatable and real. Even if you could never be in the situations she writes, you feel for the character. You relate. And I love losing myself in books like this. I feel she's masterful at her story telling and will forever remain an auto read/buy author.

I got 1/4 into it and I’m moving on, unfortunately. In just this first part, the story has flipped back and forth between three different timelines. It’s not only confusing, but it makes it really hard to connect with any of the characters- even the main character. I loved the first book by this author, liked the second enough to read to the end, but this one is not for me. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

Stacy Willingham is one of my new favorite authors! I couldn't put this book down and read it in one day.
I loved the characters in this book. The way she told the story of the often complicated female friendships was amazing! Lots of twists and turns and the ending was great! #NetGalley

I have read both of this authors prior works and loved them. I enjoyed this one, but not quite as much as the others. Perhaps it was because this novel had younger characters. I still enjoyed it a lot though and really needed to know what the deal with Lucy was. I will continue to read everything by this author.

This book for me was difficult to get through.
I felt the story lacked strong character development. This book is one about friends, lies, and death. Throughout the book the author only gives tiny pieces of the story, small puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit together. The story written in a past/ present format. The book only makes sense and comes together in the last couple of chapters. I found it to be very boring hoping the author would make more connections earlier in the story instead of waiting to reveal everything in the last chapters. This book was a miss for me.

I was given an Arc copy in return for an honest review.

I was sooo excited to get this ARC and it did NOT disapoint. Stacy is another auto buy author for me. This is her 3rd novel and I think they keep getting better.

The ending, what an ending!! So many twists I didn't see coming, a few I wondered about as a fleeting thought, but at the core I never guessed the main plot twists.



Thank you so much netgalley and St Martin's press for the advance readers copy in an exchange for an honest review.

I’m a big fan of Stacy Willingham, so I was very excited to receive this ARC. As a whole, I don’t feel like this was her strongest work, but the ending really pulled everything together and I found it to be a good read overall.

Margot is ending her freshman year at Rutledge College and has done what she has always done, blended into the background, not attracted any attention. Dealing with the grief of the unexpected, unexplained death of her best friend, Eliza, the previous summer, she’s done nothing but sit in her dorm room.
All this changes for her when she meets Lucy Sharpe and is invited to live with her and two other girls from the dorm, Sloane and Nicole, in an off campus house for the next year. Suddenly, Margot has somewhere to belong, things to do, real friends again. Until Levi Butler enters her life again and she realizes everything good in her life will always be ruined by him, just like Eliza.
Margot soon realizes that Levi is more connected to her present life than she thought, and as links between her past and present coke to light she finds herself asking more and more questions about her mysterious new friend Lucy that may have answers she isn’t ready for.

This was a veeerrryyy slow burn up until about 70 percent and then everything becomes glaringly clear, making you feel as if you could have skipped the first 70 percent. There were so many story lines that came together really well, and the ending was satisfying, but the main character was really awful for me, although smart. Her blind hatred led to consequences for everyone that may not have been deserved, and I don’t feel as if justice was adequate for everyone. I really do love Stacy Willingham and think all her books should be read though!

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books, and the author for this ARC.
Publication date January 16, 2024

A tantalizing follow up for Willingham's last novel that I was eagerly awaiting! Highly recommend picking this one up in January!

Well, I was able to sneak in one last September book! Many thanks to the publisher: St. Martins/Minotour, the author: Stacy Willingham and NetGalley for this ARC.

This book had me hooked from the first page. It is filled with suspicion, murder, plot twists and dark academia vibes. I loved the college setting (minus the murder and the sinister events) I felt a bit nostalgic for my college days.

Willingham kept me guessing throughout the entire book. I was in suspense from the beginning and enjoyed the loose ends at the end. Aside from the murders and other dark plots of this book, it really had a strong female vibe with friendships and grief taking a front stage.

This is the second book (this month) I have read by Willingham and I am looking forward to her others.

I want to start out by saying thank you so much to Stacey Willingham for this ARC!!!! I am such a huge fan and I was so excited to get approved for this one! This is different than anything she has written before - it leans more toward dark academia! Think In My Dreams I Hold a Knife!!!

The characters were real and easy to relate to! However I did feel like there were a little too many side characters to keep up with and this made the story drag a little bit for me.

Over all I would recommend for dark academia fans and all fans of Stacey Willingham!! This is a solid 4 star read and I will continue to blindly follow her!!!!

"Only if You're Lucky" is a twisted and dark portrayal of what we do to fit in, secrets we hold close to us, and the chilling look at how our best friend can end up being who we least expect. Margot is a timid freshman, about to finish her first year at school, after the death of her best friend. When Margot lays her eyes on Lucy, the coolest girl on campus, she finds herself changing who she is to fit in with Lucy and her two best friends. Chose to join the group for reasons unknown, Margot embraces the tribe of girls and ignores the uneasy feeling that she is an imposter that does not belong. When her neighbor, and enemy from high school turns up dead at a frat party, Margot begins to wonder if her friends are hiding secrets that are unthinkable.

I loved this book! A modern day 'Jekel and Hyde' that will keep you guessing at every turn. Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Stacy Willingham novels are hit or miss for me and sadly this was a miss. I kept picking it up and putting it down and felt that the story was going nowhere. I was not invested in any of the characters or the plot itself. I kept waiting for the story to pick up but it never really happened. I hope others enjoy this novel. For me, this was a DNF. I will try this author again because I have enjoyed her previous work and I appreciated getting this ARC from NetGalley.