I was looking forward to this as I have read Stacy’s other books. I found this quite slow and struggled to get into it as I found the college japes and high jinx not really my scene. That being said she does write well and the ending was pretty good even though it wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

I'm afraid when this book comes into my store it belongs in the Young Adult section, not the thriller section. I agree with the other reviewers; this is not thrilling, there is no mystery or suspense, it reads like a debut novel from a very young woman who doesn't want to accept her college days are over, and I had to dnf it because I couldn't bring myself to continue. This is my third book by this author and I've decided her books aren't for me. But then I'm in my mid-thirties so perhaps I'm not her target audience. If you like teenage drama/college frat house movies, you'll probably enjoy this so don't let me put you off. It's just that I like my thrillers to be thrilling!

Margot is starting her second year in college, her first one has been a quiet one as she has been mourning the death of her best friend Eliza. Lucy, a very confident and strong girl asks Margot to move into a frat house with her and two other girls. Margot decides she needs to do this to try and redefine herself and become a new version of herself. Things start to get crazy and secretsbstart to be revealed, Margot starts questioning things and then there is a murder. The story is all about friendship and the different types of bonds you have with people, do you really know who your friends with and to what lengths would you go to to stand by each other.
This had twists and turns throughout, and the ending made up for the slow burn. But I did feel something was missing, this one wasn't a good as her previous books. But I will definitely be reading her next one when it comes out.

Thanks to netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Margot is about to start her second year at college and is still mourning the death of her best friend Eliza. Eliza died three weeks after their high school graduation and they planned to go to college together. Margot is singled out by Lucy Sharpe and is asked to move into the house with Lucy for her second year rather than staying another year in the girls dormitory. Things then start to go wrong and six months later Lucy goes missing and one of the boys from the frat house is murdered. The police investigate and discover Lucy isn’t the only one with secrets that are exposed.

Major goes off to college, trying to put the past behind her. She is taken under the wrong of Lucy, a supremely confident and enigmatic girl. We follow the story as they live with two other girls and form a tight unit. Lots of twists and turns and murder.

This is the first book I have read by Stacey Wiltingham

This book is slow but gripping and with lots of twists and turns.

It was well written and I enjoyed t

I’ve read some reviews that complain Only Of You’re Lucky is a slow burner. That’s true of all Stacy Willingham’s books. The big difference with this one was that I’m still unsure if the ending was worth the wait.

There certainly were some twists that I didn’t see coming. Plus, the author made Lucy as creepy as hell. Still, something was missing for me in this one. I just can’t put my finger on it. However, what it had in abundance was a strong underlying theme. In this case, it was friendship. I really enjoyed seeing Margot blossom from a very lonely young girl to one with a firm group of friends. With what happened with her best friend, Eliza, she certainly deserved it. I saw parts of myself in her and she was easy to empathise with.

Naturally, Lucy was very intriguing. Just who exactly was Lucy and where has she disappeared to. However, as the story went on, I felt that Sloane and Nicole weren’t to be underestimated as characters either. While they did have as big character arcs as Margot and Lucy, they came into their own and provided some surprised.

While this wasn’t my favourite Stacy Willingham book, it was a decent read.

.The story is of Margot a troubled & friendless young women at a college in South Carolina and how she is taken under the wing of the lively & popular Lucy. Their relationships which each other, the two girls they house share with and the guys from the neighbouring frat house are thrown into chaos by a death. The victim was new to the fraternity and was aware of events that had occurred in the girls past. As the story develops secrets start to emerge.

If you've read Stacy Willinghams previous novels you'll have high expectations and reading this you will not be disappointed. This is an incredibly well written and complex novel with twists aplenty
This is my independent review but thanks to Netgalley for the free ebook.

Okay, off the bat let's just say it's a good story. Levi is dead, Lucy is missing, the road to finding out what happened has twists and turns that keep you on your toes. For a pretty dark storyline it's also got some hilariously obvious tells on the secrets - with hindsight at least, at the time they're lost in the red herrings and general storyline. It's a nice balance of entertainment and tension that made for easy reading. The characters don't really stand out, but that's in a good way. Most people are fairly... well, normal. The presence of Lucy stands out because that's true in real life too. By not trying too hard to give everyone a huge motive to exist it lets the mystery flow well.

Which brings me to the one small negative with the book. The opening chapters tried way too hard to tell me there's a mystery coming my way. It feels a default choice when someone does this inverted mystery story, like someone is worried that people will just figure they know everything and can stop reading after the first page. And I get it, there were always people who flipped to the end to find out that the butler did it and then stopped, so saying the butler did it (there are no butlers in this story, calm down, it's an analogy not a spoiler) on page one may make people give up. But I say stop worrying. trust your readers to stick with you. I'm always confident there will be something to keep me engaged, but the more you tell me in those early pages the more I actually worry it won't be delivered. The first few chapters of this story felt more worried than most, and yet the final few chapters delivered more than most stories do. So relax. As a reader it could be easy to get spooked by that hard sell, but just skim that stuff and let the story develop, because then it delivers. I'd be very surprised if anyone got to the end of this book without at least a few eyebrow raising revelations.

It's a book I couldn't put down even if I found a bit too slow at times. Twisty, surprising, disconcerting at time. A good thriller that I recommend.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A dark and atmospheric thriller that explores the complexities of morality and friendship, with a gripping narrative and an unforgettable conclusion. This was a seriously good book!!

Margot is desperate to escape her small town, her recent loss and heading to college in South Carolina seems like the perfect option. When Margot is approached by the mysterious popular girl Lucy to move into a house with her and two other girls, Margot jumps at the chance. But when they start to live together, Margot realises something is off about Lucy.

Six months later, Lucy is missing and a boy is dead. And when the police begin to investigate, they come to realise that Lucy isn’t the only one with secrets…

This is Stacey’s third thriller set in the southern U.S and although not my favourite of her books (her debut A Flicker In The Dark was such a page-turner!), Only If You’re Lucky is sure to be a hit with thriller readers. I got a little bit disorientated with the time jumps in this story but there are plenty of red herrings and twists to satisfy the reader. I figured out the main plot twist pretty early on but a big reveal at the end made up for this!

There are some really dark moments in this book so you’ve been warned. I’m still having nightmares about the shed - you will see why when you read it. It read a little more on the YA side for me but was still an enjoyable read!

Only If You’re Lucky is out now - thanks to Netgalley and Harpercollins UK for the arc.

I love the way Stacy Willingham writes. The setting of this one was fantastic and the characters really came to life. Whilst I was expecting one of the twists, another came as a complete shock. Really enjoyed.

Margot is in college in South Carolina having left her home town following the tragic death of her best friend. She is surprised when she is befriended by the most popular student who invites her to move into the accommodation she is in. But is Lucy all she seems to be? Drawn into the more complicated student life outside of the college where drugs, drink and wild parties become the norm Margot finds sinister things begin to happen and when tragedy strikes again secrets begin to be revealed. Another gripping novel by Stacey Willingham

#OnlyIfYoureLucky #NetGalley
Nice.
Lucy Sharpe is larger than life. Magnetic, addictive. Bold and dangerous. Especially for Margot, who meets Lucy at the end of their freshman year at a liberal arts college in South Carolina. Margot is the shy one, the careful one, always the sidekick and never the center of attention. But when Lucy singles her out at the end of the year, a year Margot spent studying and playing it safe, and asks her to room together, something in Margot can't say no―something daring, or starved, or maybe even envious.
And so Margot finds herself living in an off-campus house with three other girls, Lucy, the ringleader; Sloane, the sarcastic one; and Nicole, the nice one, the three of them opposites but also deeply intertwined. It's a year that finds Margot finally coming out of the shell she's been in since the end of high school, when her best friend Eliza died three weeks after graduation. Margot and Lucy have become the closest of friends, but by the middle of their sophomore year, one of the fraternity boys from the house next door has been brutally murdered... and Lucy Sharpe is missing without a trace.
Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK Harper Fiction for giving me an advance copy.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy of Only if You're Lucky. This was my first introduction to this author and I was looking forward to it based on the blurb but sadly I found I'm probably much too old for the plot which is probably aimed more at Y.A. Unfortunately I also found very slow going although I could appreciate Willingham's writing skills. I'm sure other, less advanced in years would enjoy it.

I've loved Stacy Willingham's previous books - all tightly plotted and packed with tension against the backdrop of the sizzling heat of the American South. Thank you to NetGalley for my copy of 'Only If You're Lucky' in return for an honest review - opinions, as always, are my own.

This story centres on a group of four friends who meet at university in South Carolina. The main character, Margot, is fleeing from a tragic event in her personal life when she meets the charismatic and captivating Lucy. An invitation to share a student house follows and Margot, Lucy, Sloane and Nicole find themselves living together and next to a boys' fraternity house. Before long, Margot's past starts to surface in ways she never expected - and impacts on her current life and relationships. When events take a dark turn, Margot and her friends need to decide who to trust. But can they even trust each other?

I wasn't sure whether I was perhaps a bit old to really appreciate a tale centred on university, and there was plenty of teen angst and themes more relevant to younger readers - finding your place in the world, the intensity of youthful friendships and first love. I did find this - and the varsity parties - perhaps a bit unrelatable at my advanced age! I think this is why it took me slightly longer to get into the book, but - once I did - I was absolutely hooked. The second half of the novel is absolutely packed with revelations and twists and I did not want to put it down.

Previous books by Stacy Willingham have used the claustrophobic, heat-hazed American South and the danger of the swamps really effectively - I was expecting more of this, but instead Willingham uses the buildings to convey the tension. Here, we have the secrets lying below the surface in 'respectable' suburban houses, the sinister old school, the freedom of the shut-up bowling alley and the mysteries of the student houses. The use of setting is clever and engaging, although I was hoping for a bit of Southern warmth to cheer up a very grey February in England!

The characterisation is well done - there are so few certainties in the book that my view of the girls kept shifting as more information came to the surface. Initially, I found Margot to be quite a tragic figure, struggling to fit in as she grapples with her grief. However, this soon changed as her jealousies, attitudes to other characters and past came to light - it's clearly very cleverly planned by Willingham as I never knew where I stood with any of the main characters, Lucy was a total enigma - but that's the issue Margot is dealing with too as she tries to make sense of her housemate.

I'd say this is an engaging and tense psychological thriller. It perhaps starts out slower than Willingham's previous books, but the payoff is worth waiting for. It is a departure from Willingham's other books, focusing on a younger protagonist and different setting, but it is satisfying and immersive.

Took me a while to get into this book but it delivered a great story. Lots of twists & turns which gripped you & drew you through the book. Recommended read.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in return for a review.

I expected a compelling story and and engaging writing having read books by this author before. There is some of that here, however, overall, I found this a bit too 'young adult' for my liking and didn't need the college hi-jinks trope which was repetitive.

I couldn't engage with Margot, who I found a little boring, but I did think the switch between timelines did help sustain my interest in the plot itself - though a little unbelievable towards the end.

Not one for me but am sure others will enjoy.

I am a big fan of Stacy Willingham so I knew this book was going to be good but ti surpassed all my expectations. It was creepy and addictive and I was desperate to know the answer, I didnt guess the end which surprised me!