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Ivy, Mateo, and Cal used to be close. Back in middle school they were best friends. So, when Cal pulls into campus late for class, and runs into Ivy and Mateo, it seems like the perfect opportunity to turn a bad day around. They’ll ditch school and go into the city. Just the three of them, like old times. Why did they stop hanging out, anyway?
As soon as they pull out of the parking lot Cal knows why. Ivy’s already freaking out about missing class, and heartthrob Mateo is asleep in the backseat, too cool to even pretend like he wants to be there. The truth is they have nothing in common anymore.
At least they don’t until they run into the fourth student ditching school that day. Brian “Boney” Mahoney is supposed to be accepting his newly won office of class president. Which is why Ivy follows him into an empty building, only to walk into the middle of a murder scene. Cal, Ivy, and Mateo all know the person lying on the ground of that building, and now they need to come clean. They’re all hiding something. And maybe their chance reconnection wasn’t by chance after all.

Thank you so much to Penguin for gifting me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Karen M McManus has been an auto-buy author for me for a while now, and I was so excited to receive this one as a proof ahead of release – thank you Penguin! I’ve been wanting one of the beautiful ARCs of her books for a while so as you can imagine I was super excited to get my hands on this one.

I read The Cousins back in October finally and I really enjoyed it, so I was even more excited to pick this one up. I have to say, I really enjoyed it and it reminded me yet again how hard I find these books to put down! In previous books by McManus we’ve had small town and even island settings, but this one was a little different in being set just outside of Boston. Even though I did still enjoy this setting, I did slightly miss the small community vibes of other books by her.

You can be right in principle

As usual, this book was super fast paced and I really enjoyed going into it with no idea of the plot as my proof copy had no information on it. I immediately felt intrigued by the 3 main characters and their story, and I feel like McManus has nailed the multiple POV approach. I honestly didn’t want to put this one down, especially towards the end, and finished it in a couple of days.

I always like the mystery element and this one was no different, but as I’ve seen other people mention, the motive was definitely not my favourite. I really liked the family element of The Cousins, and I think in comparison this one just felt a little impersonal in the motives. I did really like the characters, however, and although they’re all flawed in their own ways I still found them likeable and enjoyed how they interacted with one another.

and still wrong in approach.

Overall, this one was another quick and enjoyable thriller from McManus and she definitely remains an auto-buy author for me.

★★★★
4 out of 5 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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