Gripping story of Margot and her housemates who share a house next door to the frat house where the boys live. When a boy from next door is found dead and Lucy one of the girls goes missing Margot starts to wonder if she knew her housemates at all.
I loved the complex of the characters and the backgrounds full of twists and a surprising ending.
Would highly recommend as it keeps you guessing until the end.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

What a writer ! She is becoming a massive favourite for thrilling twisty stories that keep me reading deep into the night . Great characters and I can’t wait for more !

Secrets May Out..
A fresh start, a chance to begin a new life in a different place, a college in South Carolina. Margot has her chance and it seemingly gets better when the opportunity to join a shared house for her second college year transpires. Everything is not quite as it seems, however, and soon secrets may out but who will survive? With a deftly drawn and enigmatic cast of characters comes a slow burn suspense littered with twists and unexpected turns and with a propulsive and engaging plot.

A great thriller. I really enjoyed reading this book. It follows Margot who has just started college after a terrible accident happened in the summer with her best friend Eliza. This is a book full of friendship, parties, betrayal and secrets. I loved how the book flipped from before and after as we find out what really happened and lies unfold. This is entirely convincing coming of age tale of being away from home for the first time. I loved the manipulation aspect of characters and couldn't stop turning the pages to find out the truth. 4.5 starts, I will be recommending!

I'm a massive fan of Stacy Willingham's previous novels and this one continues her fine form.

She is fast becoming one of my go to authors for a thrilling, terrifying, twisty story.

3.5 rounded up

“Lucy in the sky with diamonds”

Is it true that the friends you make in college are for life? Margot thinks so, as these friends at Rutledge College South Carolina, will do literally anything for each other. Detective Frank questions them about the last time they saw their roommate Lucy Sharpe. They claim it’s three days ago and that her being MIA is nothing unusual. Truth or lies? They are told that Lucy is a person of interest in the murder of fellow student Levi Butler but did they know that already? Part of the storyline pursues the truth about the murder of Levi and the other part examines Before, when Margot arrives at Rutledge. In the latter we get insights into the ring leader Lucy and her magnetic personality as she draws people into her orbit, especially Margot, who is shy and rarely the centre of attention. Lucy brings Margot out of her shell and now they are the best of friends. The other members of the quartet are Sloane, the sarcastic one, and Nicole, the one who everyone likes. Now, that friendship is being well and truly tested with the murder and the vanishing, but the key question is (taking a leaf out of the students obsession with Spin the Bottle for Truth or Dare) if you thought you could get away with murder, would you? Margot narrates this tale.

This is not so much comedy of errors but more a case of Jekyll and Hyde which the author uses well in order to decide if Lucy is a diamond or otherwise. She lies absolutely at the heart of this and for a long time I puzzle over why enigmatic Lucy is even interested in Margot and why she is central to the storyline but then the light dawns. When we first meet her Margot she’s not especially interesting, in fact, I’d go so far as to say she’s dull, she’s vanilla, she’s malleable and she seems to drone on, especially about her friend Eliza from childhood. Lucy is the exciting one and Margot is flat. However if you can get past the slow start and irritation with Margot, it becomes a fascinating and compelling story of obsession and obsessive behaviour, of toxic friendships and equally toxic relationships, there’s also guilt, rejection and resentment in the mix, leading to some disastrous consequences.

For long time very little happens and it feels like a YA novel with student shenanigans thrown into the storyline but it does have sinister undertones and building suspicions as the author lulls you into a full sense of security. I realise that much of what we learn initially is nothing more than an optical illusion as the storytelling becomes increasingly suspenseful with some chapters ending on good cliffhangers. I also appreciate that I’ve missed so many clues as everything starts to click into place and connect. The last part of the of the novel contains multiple twists and a couple are so good that my jaw drops.

Finally, one thing I can say with certainty is that Stacy Willingham writes beautifully and you just have to be patient with this one as I think it’s very clever.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to HarperCollins, Harper Fiction for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

The book started with promise but just dragged on and I found it boring. I did not identify with any of the characters nor the University system. I soldiered on but gave up part way through as I had no desire to finish the book. Sorry to the author that it was not mu cup of tea and thanks to NetGalley.

Only If You’re Lucky
by
Stacy Willingham

⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

Willingham delivers another enjoyable novel, this time a psychological thriller about female friendships and secret histories.

Margo, our main protagonist, arrives at college desperate to fit in and find herself. A shy girl who’s struggling with the unexpected death of her childhood best friend, she wants nothing more than to find her tribe. So she can’t believe her luck when she is adopted by a group of popular girls, a group lead by the mysterious Lucy. Together they enjoy a summer of fun, friendship, and fraternity parties, but six months later Lucy is missing and their frat boy neighbour is found dead. It turns out Lucy has secrets. But is she the only one?

I really enjoyed this one, especially the female first-person POV, the academic setting, and the oscillation between past and present. For me, it wasn’t quite as strong as Willingham’s debut novel, A Flicker in the Dark, but nevertheless this is one to check out if you’re a fan of her work and appreciate campus-based thrillers!

Thank you to @netgalley and @harpercollinsuk for this ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts!

Only If You’re Lucky will be published in the UK on the 1st Feb 2024.

Happy to say that I enjoyed this much more than Stacy Willingham's last book!

I am a huge fan of A Flicker in the Dark, her debut. but unfortunately All The Dangerous Things fell flat for me and I didn't really enjoy it at all. So going into this new release, I was nervous. But I ended up liking it a lot and found it really gripping and tense, just what you expect from a thriller! I really liked the writing and the plot, and overall had a good time reading. I think thriller fans will gobble this up!

Margot is besieged by grief and guilt when her best friend Eliza dies the summer before they are due to start college together. In a bid to overcome her grief and escape the memories of her friendship she is surrounded by Margot decides to go ahead with the plans the pair made together. When she arrives at college she is befriended by the enigmatic Lucy. Things begin to take a dark turn, however, when Lucy is accused of killing Levi, the boy Margot blames for the death of her best friend.

Only If You're Lucky by Stacy Willingham is a slow burner, there's plenty of mystery from the very start but the layers of the story are uncovered very gradually, keeping you in suspense. The storyline jumps backwards and forwards over a two year period. We meet Margot as she starts college at Rutledge and you have lots of sympathy for her. Margot is an introvert, a loner. This is partly her nature but also down to the fact that she had planned to start college with her friend who was the outgoing one of the pair. It is understandable that Margot is entranced by the trio of friends she sees around her dorm. Lucy, Sloane and Nicole seem to be everything that Margot aspires to, particularly Lucy. Lucy is always the centre of attention, larger than life, a rule breaker. Margot is like an animal caught in a car's headlights when Lucy turns her attention on her and the trio becomes a quartet.

As we learn about Margot's first year in college and her fixation with Lucy the story jumps back to before college and we discover more about her friendship with Eliza. The pair shared an idyllic friendship with Eliza Being the ying to Margot's yang. The pair made plans to attend the same college and even room together. Everything seemed to be going to plan until the inevitable happened, a boy, Levi, came between them.

We slowly learn about the events surrounding Eliza's death, with Levi being the last person to see her alive at a party, a party Margot didn't attend, hence her guilt over not being there to protect her friend. The grief and guilt resurface when Levi turns up at Rutledge.

The other element of the story is what happens after Levi is murdered. The police suspect Lucy and want to question her but she has disappeared. Margot, Sloane and Nicole claim to have no knowledge of her whereabouts, and disappearing for days at a time is not unusual for Lucy. We, the reader, begin to realise that the friends are covering for Lucy and that secrets are being kept from the police.

At the beginning, the story has lots of appeal. The thought of college in America with dorms, sororities and picturesque settings feels like another world to UK readers. It is the details of college life and the budding friendship, combined with the jumps between time frames, that initially make this a slow burner.

As we get to know more about Lucy you have an unsettling feeling. From the outset, Sloane warns Margot that Lucy lies and manipulates people to get what she wants. Despite these warnings, you feel sympathetic towards Lucy, her home life hasn't been ideal and it's obvious she isn't as privileged as those around her. However, there is always that sense of unease, that she's dangerous. It is impossible to forget that she's "a master of manipulation, of misdirection and deceit".

I was enjoying the gradual building of the story until about two-thirds of the way through when the narrative took an unexpected turn which really elevated the nature of this novel. Pieces started to fall into place leaving me shocked that I hadn't spotted the clues that were dropped. Author Stacy Willingham shows how easy it is for us to jump to conclusions.

From the New York Times bestselling author of A FLICKER IN THE DARK and ALL THE DANGEROUS THINGS comes a gripping psychological thriller about female friendship and dark secrets

Another twisty, psychological thriller exploring female friendships. Willingham is auto buy author for me, after loving her two previous novels. Only If You’re Lucky is slower paced and a little different from her usual style - to me it almost felt YA, but hey, I’m old so what do I know - what I do know, is it was very entertaining!

Following in true dark academia style, the story takes place at a liberal arts college in South Carolina. Margo struggles to make friends, especially as she is still dealing with the recent death of her childhood best friend. When Lucy invites her to become roommates with her and two other girls, Margot jumps at the chance. She very quickly finds herself fully ensconced in college/fraternity life … and the beginning of some toxic relationships and mishaps.

Stacey Willingham, Only If You’re Lucky.

After the tragic death of her best friend Margot heads off to college desperate for a new start. There she meets Lucy and quickly finds herself drawn into a new world. But as the past and the present clash Margot may find herself in the centre of a dangerous web.

Stacey Willingham was one of my best finds of the last couple of years. Dark suspense that crawl in through the corner of your mind. Only If You’re Lucky explores an explosive, intensive female friendship that threatens to tear them all apart. A solid thriller, of course!

I enjoyed a previous book by this author so I was really looking forward to this one. Unfortunately, one of the main characters was so dull and boring for me that I lost interest in the whole story and I DNFed it.

I really enjoyed only if your lucky it was a gripping fast paced thriller which kept me on edge of the seat all the way through. I have heard about the authors other book being a fantastic read so when I seen this I thought I would give it a go and I was not disappointed really enjoyed the pace and how well developed the characters were. I will definitely be looking out for more from this author.

Margot is a shy college student, her life was turned upside down by the sudden death of a close friend which they both had made many plans together. So when Margot meets Lucy she can't believe that Lucy would befriend her but is Lucy really the new friend that Margot needs.

I will definitely be recommending this fantastic thriller it will have you gripped from start to finish. Thanks to netgallery and the publisher for my advanced copy.

Only if you're lucky is a story that really throws twists at you, that you do not expect

I thought I had a good idea of what was going on, but boy was I wrong! I don't want to spoil anything but make sure you have time to read this, because you will not want to put it down

Thank you Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I did like this book and it was a very fast paced thriller - which I do enjoy. I liked that the narrator was unreliable and the plot had several side-lines compacted into one so it had a lot going on. This didn't take anything away from the story and in fact helped it flesh it out.

The reason for 3.5 stars is because I felt it was quite predictable - possibly because I've read a ton of thrillers? But none of the 'twists' were surprising sadly.

I do however, like how this author writes so it was easy to read through to it's finish.

3.5 STARS

I devoured this one! This is a page turner and I couldn't put this down until the last page. The last few chapters put me at the edge of my seat and I couldn't stop reading!

The book is written to hold attention and has a sort of then and now. The academia setting works brilliantly in its favour. The leads have all their own red herrings and suspicious behaviour that make you question them. I for one couldn't see some of the twists coming. What I liked was nothing is what it seems like and how what one sees isn't always true. Overall a brilliant read.

Thank you HarperCollins UK and NetGalley for this e-arc in exchange of my unbiased review.

I quite enjoyed the previous Willingham novel I read, the description for this sounds great and I have really been in a thriller mood lately, so I was hoping for a good exciting time with 'Only if You're Lucky". The premise is a good one and I do enjoy college settings, especially when tinged with dark academia vibes. This book did not have any of those vibes though, and I'm sad to say that it didn't offer much else either.

We follow Margot, a freshman at Ruthledge college that is still grieving the death of her childhood best friend that she was, frankly, completely obsessed with. Her rather boring college life finally gets exciting when she meets the mysterious Lucy and her two best friends Sloane and Nicole. Lucy quickly adopts Margot as the newest part of their group, moving with them off-campus into a large house owned by a college fraternity. Later, Lucy disappears right after one member from said fraternity is found dead, probably murdered. The mystery of the death and disappearance gets untangled in two timelines - the past, spanning from Margot's childhood days with her former best friend to the day Lucy disappears, and the present day showing us what happens after her disappearence. And quite frankly, all of it drags. Margot is a very lacklustre character that mostly just annoyed me, and there's way too much time spent on telling us things that add nothing to the overall story. Lucy is made out to be this alluring, enchanting, subtly dangerous person but I just found her dull and predictable.
I did like the atmosphere of the house they live in and the constant presence of the fraternity, that could enter the girls' living space at any point, felt threatening. The ending also finally picked up speed and I didn't see the big twist coming for quite a while, but even the actually good ending couldn't save the whole book for me.
Sadly only 2 stars this time around.

I love reading books by Stacy Willingham, she always manages to keep me hooked until the end especially with the twists and turns.

I made a short video about this book:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uSACLxPgOkw

1. What's up with these slow-paced, boring thrillers where nothing really happens till the very end?

2. Margot is one hell of a boring character, obsessive, and unlikable and having her as the main character didn't do this book any favours.

3. The ending was the only good thing about this book but it was not enough to redeem it.

4. Not my cup of tea! 🍵