This brilliantly crafted thriller delivers nonstop tension with a plot that’s as clever as it is unpredictable. The atmosphere is electric, and each twist deepens the mystery without ever feeling forced. Characters are vivid and layered, making the danger feel all the more real. It’s a gripping, high-stakes ride you won’t want to end.

This was a very good book. It was well-written. I would highly recommend this book. It's very easy to read.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

Smile for the Cameras by Miranda Smith – ★★★☆☆

This had a great premise—90s slasher vibes, a washed-up actress returning to the horror movie that made her famous, and a mysterious reunion where the cast starts dying off just like in the original film. I was hooked by the idea, but the execution fell a little flat for me.

The story follows Ella, once a “Final Girl” in the cult classic Grad Night, now reluctantly reuniting with the cast for a documentary. The book jumps between past and present, with snippets of the original screenplay woven in, which was a nice touch. But the first half dragged. The characters felt flat, especially Ella, who spends most of the book weary, guilt-ridden, and hard to connect with.

Things picked up in the last quarter—finally delivering some twists, action, and nostalgic creepiness. The ending was satisfying and saved the book from being a total miss.

If you’re into slow-burn thrillers with a retro slasher feel and don’t mind waiting for the action, it’s worth checking out. But if you need more momentum up front, this one might not be for you.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Bantam for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Ella, the main character of this book is a starving actress, she has recently taken a break to take care of her ailing mother. Now that her mother has passed she’s ready to get back out there and is offered to star in a reunion for a movie she starred in during the 90s. Although she’s reluctant she agrees.

This book reads like a YA thriller however all the sex scenes change that. This book switches from movie scenes, the past, to the characters in present day. I wasn’t the biggest fan but if you’re looking for a campy thriller this book could be for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random Publishing House. Due to be published June 24th, 2025

📚 Just finished Smile for the Camera by Miranda Smith and WOW 😳

Imagine discovering that your mom might not be who she says she is... that’s exactly what happens to Kira. One viral photo flips her whole life upside down. Secrets, lies, and a mother with a past no one saw coming 👀

This one had me flipping pages like crazy. Twists? CHECK. Family drama? DOUBLE CHECK. Trust issues? Oh, absolutely.

If you’re into psychological thrillers that mess with your head (in the best way), you’ll love this.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
#BookReview #ThrillerReads #SmileForTheCamera #MirandaSmith #PlotTwistQueen #Bookstagram #PsychologicalThriller

Smile for the Cameras by Miranda Smith is a recommended locked-room thriller and horror movie drama.

Twenty years ago the slasher movie Grad Night was released and became a cult-classic. In the movie Ella Winters was the sole survivor and this role made her famous. However, something happened during the making of the movie which Ella and her co-stars agreed to never mention again, but the secret has weighed heavy on Ella for years. Ella left acting after this to care for her ill mother.

Now her mother has passed away and Ella is talked into doing a reunion documentary about Grad Night. She has never wanted to do this but all her co-stars in the film have agreed to participate. If she does the reunion she is promised a role in a new film, which will ease her way back into acting. The reunion show is being filmed at the original site, an isolated cabin in rural Tennessee. Ella immediately knows this is a mistake.

There is a lot of potential for this plot. The narrative follows the present day reunion shoot, the actions from twenty years ago during the original movie, and includes excerpts from the Grad Night script. Everything indicates something bad is going to happen and it does. The pace starts out slow and builds to create more tension toward the end.

The characters all slide into their roles smoothly, and all of them have overlaying shadows of suspicion surrounding them. Ella is generally likable, but incredibly fragile.

The atmosphere created is never really that frightening and while it held my attention, the plot never quite came together for me. Perhaps if I was more a fan of slasher movies rather than locked-room thrillers it would have helped, along with more originality and surprises. I actually started skimming the script excerpts because they were so insipid. The biggest drawback, however, was a surprise twist toward the end that left me shaking my head and saying, "No, just no." It also knocked a star off.

Smile for the Cameras might be best appreciated by slasher movie fans. Thanks to Random House for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

This was such a fun, fast paced popcorn thriller that had me totally hooked. I’ve always been a sucker for stories about celebrities, especially the washed up and fame faded kind, and Smile for the Cameras absolutely delivered on that front.

One of the standout elements for me was the meta vibe running throughout the book. Miranda Smith plays cleverly with the concept of performance, both on screen and off, and that layer of self awareness made the whole story feel sharp and fresh.

The dual timelines added intrigue, though I did find the pacing between the two a bit uneven. The present day narrative felt a bit bogged down at times, mostly because I was so desperate to find out what happened in the past that led to all the current chaos. The buildup was long, but thankfully the twist was well worth the wait with a solid, satisfying payoff that had me flipping pages late into the night.

That little frustration aside, I was wildly entertained and totally absorbed. If you love your thrillers glitzy, dark, and a little bit wicked, this one is a great ride.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group, and Miranda Smith for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Lots of throwback fun here for the slasher genre lover. The plot revolves around a washed up actress who is looking to have a renaissance in her career. Her claim to fame was a slasher film that ended up making the whole young cast famous--but she's been caring for her dying mother and staying out of the spotlight for years while also dealing with some unresolved trauma that slowly unfolds throughout the story. As for story begins, she's convinced to return to the cabin in the woods where the first movie was filmed for a reunion show with the original cast.

Characterization is not very rounded and the plot isn't terribly complex (the villain is a bit underwhelming); however, if you're going into this looking for some good, page-turning fun, then you will probably enjoy this one.

Read this for a good time on a camping or lake trip this summer!

After all these years their secret is out

Two decades ago a cult slasher/horror movie called Grad Night came out and the young actress who played the sole survivor , Ella Winters, shot to instant stardom. Something terrible happened during the production of the movie and Ella and her co-stars were sworn to secrecy about it. The guilt that Ella felt about that event led her to quickly retreat from Hollywood; she said that it was because she had to take care of her ailing mother but that was just a cover. Now Ella's mother has passed away and Ella decides to try for a comeback. There is a documentary being filmed, a reunion of the original cast, which seems like its just the vehicle to relaunch her career. She travels to the site of the original production, a remote cabin in Tennessee to join up with her former cast mates (whom she hasn't seen for more than a decade). The reunion soon becomes a nightmare, with the original cast dying in ways that parallel their characters' fates in the film, Ella was the only one who survived in the movie....will she be as lucky this time around? Clearly someone knows what happened all those years ago, and they are determined to extract their revenge.
For anyone who enjoyed the classic slasher films of the '90's, the premise of Smile for the Cameras is an irresistible lure. With throwback vibes and plenty of twists and turns, it is a psychological thriller full of atmosphere. I found Ella's character kind of wimpy at the beginning of the book, but she grows tougher as the book goes on. Similarly the pace of the plot starts slow, but in the second half of the book it picks up and hurtles through to the end. The tease of what exactly the "something terrible" was takes a while (maybe too long a while) to be revealed, but all will be made clear for readers willing to hang in there. Overall, I'd rate the book a 3.5 ⭐️ rounded up to a 4...a great concept that takes a while to pick up steam but packs the latter half of the book with twists galore. Fans of Riley Sager, Nicci French and Lisa Jewell may want to give this a try. My thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine/Bantam for allowing me access to this nod to 90's slasher flicks in exchange for my honest review.

The original cast of an iconic slasher film gathers at an isolated cabin to film a reunion documentary, the first time they've all been together in years, but this time the deaths are real. Told from the point of view of Ella, the film's final girl, the book moves back and forth between the past and present. I enjoyed the writing, but there's nothing particularly new or suspenseful here.

Thank you, NetGalley for giving me access to this early release book. It kept me entertained but, wasn’t my favorite. It wasn’t really a thriller either. I think this book had potential but, unfortunately it fell short for me. I wasn’t a fan of any of the characters either. They all kind of annoyed me 😅.

This time the reviews I saw were correct on their thoughts on the book. They aren’t always right but, in this case they were.

A final girl slasher? Sign me right up. I had a lot of fun following Ella between the two timelines and figuring out what happened between each event

A group of actors returning for a reunion to the movie set that jump-started their careers twenty years ago ends with deadly consequences.

This started off solid, then slowly fizzled out for me about halfway through. I wasn't able to connect with the characters and felt they needed more development. The setting was isolated and perfect for the locked-in, dread inducing vibe. This was written well with a good plot and plenty of unpredictable twists. I just never was able to fully submerge myself into their world and wanted more depth. Overall, this was a fun read full of the final girl and horror tropes that we all love to see in movies and books alike. Three stars.

Thank you, Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, for this ARC.

Smile for the Cameras is a twisty, fast-paced thriller with a reality TV backdrop that adds just the right amount of voyeuristic tension. It plays with fame, truth, and how far people will go to protect their version of the story. I flew through it in a day—it’s one of those “just one more chapter” books that turns into finishing it in a sitting. The mystery unravels slowly, but the buildup works, especially with the dual timelines adding layers of suspense.

What I really liked was how messy and real the characters felt. No one’s innocent, and that made it way more interesting. The twists weren’t overdone but still delivered a solid payoff, and I appreciated that it didn’t rely on shock value to hold my attention. If you’re into thrillers about secrets, lies, and the dark side of curated perfection, this one hits the mark.

This was a slasher thriller slow burn that I completely ate up. This was told from both past and present perspectives with screenplay scenes thrown in. This is a perfect summer read that I would recommend to any horror movie fan.
Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine|Bantam for this ARC.

In Smile for the Cameras by Miranda Smith, former Hollywood star Ella Winters returns to the spotlight after years in hiding, joining her old castmates to film a reunion documentary for the cult-classic slasher Grad Night. Haunted by a terrible secret from the original film's production, Ella hopes to redeem her career—but the trip to a remote Tennessee cabin quickly turns deadly. As the actors are killed off one by one in the same gruesome ways their characters died on screen, it becomes clear someone knows the truth they swore to keep buried. Now, Ella must fight to survive a real-life horror as terrifying as the movie that made her famous.
I had a really good time with this one! It made me nostalgic for all of the classic slasher movies we know and love, but it was unique enough that it didn’t feel like it was copying those films. I also enjoyed the dual timeline aspect of the book, which gave us a closer look into the filming of the Grad Night movie and gave us some background on what went down twenty years prior.
While I enjoyed this one a lot, it felt like something was missing and didn’t give me that five-star feeling. The last 30% of the book was very tense and had me on the edge of my seat, but the twist and the ending was not as shocking and thrilling as I expected, and felt too neatly wrapped up.
As a whole, this was an incredibly creepy story that made me want to see this as a movie! I absolutely recommend this book!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc! Such an interesting concept but fell a little flat for me - the motivation didn’t quite track and overall found the plot to be predictable. Was a pretty fun read, but nothing to go nuts over. 2.5 rounded up

A reunion for a psychological locked in thriller movie turns into a real life psychological locked in thriller as the cast members are chased by a killer. Secrets are spilled and their dark pasts are brought to life. The killer wants revenge.

My thanks to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for allowing me to review this arc.

The cast of Grad Night re unites 20 years for a documentary. But Ella, one of the cast has doubts but gives in. Once the documentary starts filming bodies start turning up that ties in to a tragedy 20 years before.

I did like this. Gave me vibes of I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream, and Jason.

My only issues, lots of non linear story telling and the first body did not turn up till 60% in. Slow build up.

What happens when a horror movie happens on a movie set twenty years later?

Ella got her big break twenty years ago on a "lower budget" film that overnight turned into a cult classic. The thing is, Ella cant look back on that summer with filming without thinking of the tragic event that happened the night of wrap. She's been hidden from the spotlight but is now ready to try again, but the catch is first they need to film a reunion documentary where it all started. Now Ella and her original castmates are to solve the mystery, who's murdering crew members and knows the true secret of that night?

Smile for the Cameras hits shelves June 24.

I am not a huge horror novel fan but the thriller aspect of "who done it" kept me in. There were many twists and turns. I liked the flashbacks where each scene gave us more intel and we start seeing the unravel happen. I will say I think it was a little too long in some aspects but overall I really enjoyed the book. It hits nostalgia a lot of the slasher films of the 90's and definitely touched on issues that people often dealt with in the filming industry. The suspense kept me reading and though there was some fizzling out in the middle of the book on my attention span, there was a "Oh Sh*t" moment that roped me back in and I finished 40 % of the book in day!

This book is perfect for that "Summerween" vibe and if you love feeling nostalgia.

Thanks to Bantam and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.