Only If You're Lucky

August 1, 2023

In the New York Times best-selling Willingham's Only If You're Lucky, mousy Margot starts shrugging off her inhibitions when she's picked by shining-star Lucy to room together with two other women during sophomore year, but by midyear the frat boy next door has been murdered and Lucy has disappeared (250,000-copy first printing). Prepub Alert.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2023
A first-year college student accepts an invitation to leave her dormitory and move into a house with three other women. Then absolutely everything goes wrong. In truth, it's been a while since things were right for Margot, an Outer Banks native who followed her childhood friend Eliza Jefferson in applying to South Carolina's Rutledge College, only to have Eliza die the summer after their high school graduation. Margot's overachieving parents wanted her to go to Duke. Determined to honor Eliza's memory, however, she instead goes to Rutledge, where nothing much happens until Lucy Sharpe casts a knowing eye over her. Lucy lives in an outbuilding on the grounds of the Kappa Nu fraternity, and she's sure that Margot would provide the perfect addition to her other housemates. Sloane Peters and Nicole Clausen, the housemates in question, are less certain and less impressed by the newcomer. But strong-willed Lucy carries all before her until Levi Butler, a Kappa Nu legacy who's pledged the fraternity, is found dead with Lucy's blood on his clothes. Detective Frank, as Margot calls him, wants to know more. He's not going to find it out from Lucy, who's gone AWOL, or from her friends, who treat her absence as no big deal--hey, she's probably just getting it on with somebody or getting wasted somewhere. But Margot can't help taking Levi's death more personally, since she knows that he was once Eliza's boyfriend and is convinced that somebody's covering something up. In fact, pretty much everybody is covering up pretty much everything, and readers waiting for the big reveal will have to get by on a diet of gossip, gap-filled memories, and college angst in the meantime. The payoff is handsome, but the road there is too much of too little.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 27, 2023
The latest from Willingham (All the Dangerous Things) is a cunning if somewhat implausible campus thriller. As Margot nears the end of her achingly lonely freshman year—a far cry from the adventurous one she’d imagined with her bestie, Eliza, who had died under suspicious circumstances weeks after their high school graduation—at South Carolina’s Rutledge College, she can’t fathom why Lucy Sharpe, one of the school’s most popular coeds, would invite her to room with her and her wingwomen in the historic off-campus house they’re renting for the summer. Still, Margot leaps at the offer, plunging into what turns out to be a maelstrom of secrets, mind games, and possibly murder. Despite her natural reserve, Margot clicks with the uninhibited Lucy, sliding into a sidekick role similar to the one she played with Eliza. However, as the summer’s booze-soaked partying with the neighboring fraternity winds on, Lucy’s darker side emerges, especially after the arrival of prospective frat pledge Levi Butler—Eliza’s old boyfriend, who was reportedly the last person to see her alive. Flash forward several months: Levi’s dead, Lucy has disappeared, and Margot’s narration has become increasingly unreliable. Though the twisty narrative grows far-fetched as it nears the climax, Willingham’s prose remains evocative, and her deep dive into the thorny nature of female friendship rings true. Though this doesn’t rank among the author’s best work, it’s still a gripping ride.

January 1, 2024
After her best friend Eliza's sudden death, Margot goes alone to the college where they had planned to launch their adult lives together. Things brighten when Margot is pulled into charismatic Lucy's circle and joins Lucy, Nicole, and Sloane in a rental house owned by the fraternity next door. With them, Margot feels like she belongs and becomes immersed in a heady routine of parties and soul-baring talks. Then Levi (who was with Eliza when she died) shows up next door, and Margot's grief-fueled suspicion casts a dark shadow over her new group of friends. In a show of loyalty, Lucy plots to give Levi his due. But then Lucy's secrets are exposed, she disappears, and Margot, Nicole, and Sloane become suspects in her murder. This book has all the essential tropes of a college-days thriller: a tight-knit group of ride-or-die friends, dangerous secrets, and intense longing to belong. But Willingham is known for psychological twists, and the one she plants here is a doozy.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.