Ashley Winstead

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

New Jersey

A Novel

"Deeply drawn characters and masterful storytelling come together to create an addictive and riveting psychological thriller. Put this one at the very top of your 2021 reading list." --Liv Constantine, internationally bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish

Six friends.

One college reunion.

One unsolved murder.

Ten years after graduation, Jessica Miller has been invited back to her university for a reunion and she is obsessed with dazzling everyone with her beauty and success. This time when they see her, it has to be perfect because she is perfect. Not the girl she was when she left campus, back when Heather Shelby's murder fractured everything, including the tight bond linking the six friends she'd been closest to since freshman year.

But there's more at stake than the delicious envy of her peers--not everyone is ready to move on. Not everyone can let Heather's murder go unsolved. In fact, someone has orchestrated the whole weekend to trap the real killer. As the weekend unfolds and they get closer to the truth, the group finds there was more than murder hidden amongst them on campus.

Told in racing dual timelines, with a dark campus setting and a darker look at friendship, love, obsession and ambition, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife is an addictive, propulsive thriller you won't be able to put down.

In My Dreams I Hold a Knife

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Victoria Lee

Book is new but has some damage as pictured

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Michigan

A dark, twisty thriller about a centuries-old, ivy-covered boarding school haunted by its history of witchcraft and two girls dangerously close to digging up the past. The dangerous romance and atmospheric setting makes it a perfect read for fans of dark academia.

Felicity Morrow is back at the Dalloway School. Perched in the Catskill Mountains, the centuries-old, ivy-covered campus was home until the tragic death of her girlfriend. Now, after a year away, she's returned to finish high school. She even has her old room in Godwin House, the exclusive dormitory rumored to be haunted by the spirits of five Dalloway students--girls some say were witches. The Dalloway Five all died mysteriously, one after another, right on Godwin grounds. 
 
Witchcraft is woven into Dalloway's past. The school doesn't talk about it, but the students do. In secret rooms and shadowy corners, girls convene. And before her girlfriend died, Felicity was drawn to the dark. She's determined to leave that behind now, but it's hard when Dalloway's occult history is everywhere. And when the new girl won't let her forget. 
 
It's Ellis Haley's first year at Dalloway, and she has already amassed a loyal following. A prodigy novelist at seventeen, Ellis is a so-called method writer. She's eccentric and brilliant, and Felicity can't shake the pull she feels to her. So when Ellis asks Felicity to help her research the Dalloway Five for her second book, Felicity can't say no. Given her history with the arcane, Felicity is the perfect resource. 
 
And when history begins to repeat itself, Felicity will have to face the darkness in Dalloway--and herself. 
 

A Lesson in Vengeance

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Carrie Doyle

Florida

For readers of Karen M. McManus and Maureen Johnson.Luke Chase didn't mean to get caught up solving the mystery of Mrs. Heckler's murder. He just wanted to spend alone time with the new British girl at their boarding school. But little did he know someone would end up dead right next to their rendezvous spot in the woods, and his best friend and roommate Oscar Weymouth would be the one to take the blame. With suspects aplenty and a past that's anything but innocent, Luke Chase reluctantly calls on his famous survival skills to solve the mystery and find the true killer.

The Murder Game

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#paperback #youngadult #fiction #ya #fairytales #retelling #privateschool #youngadult #sapphic #darkacademia #queer #lgbtq #lesbian #series

Four troubled friends, One murdered girl... and a dark fate that may leave them all doomed. After the mysterious death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki, and Rory are the talk of their elite school, Grimrose Academy. The police ruled it a suicide, but the trio are determined to find out what really happened. When Nani Esvez arrives as their newest roommate, it sets into motion a series of events they couldn't have imagined. As the girls retrace their friend's last steps, they uncover dark secrets about themselves and their destinies--discovering they're all cursed to repeat the brutal and gruesome endings to their stories until they can break the cycle. This contemporary take on classic fairytales reimagines heroines as friends attending the same school. While investigating the murder of their best friend, they uncover connections to their ancient fairytale curses and attempt to forge their own fate before it's too late. Praise for The Last 8: "This debut is, at times, both joyful and heartbreaking ... Pohl's characters are tough, funny, and brave as they manage to persevere despite the debilitating weight of grief."--Booklist "With its powerful world building and emotional twists, The Last 8 is a beautifully fresh take on the idea of an alien apocalypse."--Foreword Reviews "A sci-fi romp with ample intergalactic twists to keep readers satisfied."--Kirkus Reviews

The Grimrose Girls

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Alex Michaelides

Arizona

**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**

"Alex Michaelides's long-awaited next novel, 'The Maidens,' is finally here...the premise is enticing and the elements irresistible."
--The New York Times

"A deliciously dark, elegant, utterly compulsive read--with a twist that blew my mind. I loved this even more than I loved The Silent Patient and that's saying something!"
--Lucy Foley, New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient comes a spellbinding tale of psychological suspense, weaving together Greek mythology, murder, and obsession, that further cements "Michaelides as a major player in the field" (Publishers Weekly).

Edward Fosca is a murderer. Of this Mariana is certain. But Fosca is untouchable. A handsome and charismatic Greek tragedy professor at Cambridge University, Fosca is adored by staff and students alike--particularly by the members of a secret society of female students known as The Maidens.

Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana's niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge.

Mariana, who was once herself a student at the university, quickly suspects that behind the idyllic beauty of the spires and turrets, and beneath the ancient traditions, lies something sinister. And she becomes convinced that, despite his alibi, Edward Fosca is guilty of the murder. But why would the professor target one of his students? And why does he keep returning to the rites of Persephone, the maiden, and her journey to the underworld?

When another body is found, Mariana's obsession with proving Fosca's guilt spirals out of control, threatening to destroy her credibility as well as her closest relationships. But Mariana is determined to stop this killer, even if it costs her everything--including her own life.

The Maidens

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Daphne Du Maurier

Wisconsin

"A fine romantic tale...rich in suspense and surprise." --New York Times Book Review On a bitter November evening, young Mary Yellan journeys across the rainswept moors to Jamaica Inn in honor of her mother's dying request. When she arrives, the warning of the coachman begins to echo in her memory, for her aunt Patience cowers before hulking Uncle Joss Merlyn. Terrified of the inn's brooding power, Mary gradually finds herself ensnared in the dark schemes being enacted behind its crumbling walls -- and tempted to love a man she dares not trust.

Jamaica Inn

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South Carolina

Joanna Goodman

Oregon

In this suspenseful, provocative novel of friendship, secrets, and deceit, a successful writer returns to her elite Swiss boarding school to get to the bottom of a tragic accident that took place while she was a student twenty years earlier. How far would you go to uncover the truth? One spring night in 1998 the beautiful Cressida Strauss plunges from a fourth-floor balcony at the Lycée Internationale Suisse with catastrophic consequences. Loath to draw negative publicity to the school, a bastion of European wealth and glamour, officials quickly dismiss the incident as an accident, but questions remain: Was it a suicide attempt? Or was Cressida pushed? It was no secret that she had a selfish streak and had earned as many enemies as allies in her tenure at the school. For her best friend, scholarship student Kersti Kuusk, the lingering questions surrounding Cressida's fall continue to nag long after she leaves the Lycée. Kersti marries and becomes a bestselling writer, but never stops wondering about Cressida's obsession with the Helvetian Society—a secret club banned years before their arrival at the school—and a pair of its members who were expelled. When Kersti is invited as a guest to the Lycée's 100th Anniversary, she begins probing the cover-up, unearthing a frightening underbelly of lies and abuse at the prestigious establishment. And in one portentous moment, Kersti makes a decision that will connect her to Cressida forever and raise the stakes dangerously high in her own desire to solve the mystery and redeem her past. An unputdownable read as clever as it is compelling, The Finishing School offers a riveting glimpse into a privileged, rarefied world in which nothing is as it appears.

The Finishing School

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Elisabeth Thomas

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Massachusetts

Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free--but acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years, summers included, completely removed from the outside world. In return, the school promises a future of sublime power and prestige. Among this year's incoming class is Ines Murillo, who expects to trade blurry nights of parties, cruel friends, and dangerous men for rigorous intellectual discipline, only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. But the House's strange protocols soon make this refuge feel increasingly like a gilded prison.

Catherine House

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M. L. Rio

Montana

“Much like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, M. L. Rio’s sparkling debut is a richly layered story of love, friendship, and obsession...will keep you riveted through its final, electrifying moments.” —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author of The Nest "Nerdily (and winningly) in love with Shakespeare...Readable, smart.” —New York Times Book Review On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, the man who put him there is waiting at the door. Detective Colborne wants to know the truth, and after ten years, Oliver is finally ready to tell it. A decade ago: Oliver is one of seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of keen ambition and fierce competition. In this secluded world of firelight and leather-bound books, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingénue, extras. But in their fourth and final year, good-natured rivalries turn ugly, and on opening night real violence invades the students’ world of make-believe. In the morning, the fourth-years find themselves facing their very own tragedy, and their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, each other, and themselves that they are innocent. If We Were Villains was named one of Bustle's Best Thriller Novels of the Year, and Mystery Scene says, "A well-written and gripping ode to the stage...A fascinating, unorthodox take on rivalry, friendship, and truth."

If We Were Villains

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New York

If we were villains puzzle set

Idaho

R. J. Jacobs

Riley Sager meets If We Were Villains in a compelling new psychological thriller by RJ Jacobs, following a tight-knit group of graduate students studying the psychology of lying. When one of them is discovered dead after an experiment, everything the group thought they knew about deception crumbles... Campus is empty, a winter storm is blowing in, and someone is lurking in the shadows, waiting for their chance to kill again. Forest, North Carolina. Under the instruction of enigmatic Professor Joe Lyons, five graduate students are studying the tedious science behind the acts of lying. But discovering the secrets of deception isn't making any of the student's more honest though. Instead, it's making it easier for them to guard their own secrets - and they all have something to hide. When a test goes awry and one of them is found dead, the students find themselves trapped by a snowstorm on an abandoned campus with a local detective on the case. As harbored secrets begin to break the surface, the graduates must find out who's lying, who isn't, and who may have been capable of committing murder. It turns out deception is even more dangerous than they thought... A foreboding new dark academia thriller of deception and suspense, This is How it Ends follows the unraveling of a close group of students as they contend with what it means to lie, and be lied to.

This Is How We End Things

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Olivie Blake

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Colorado

The much-acclaimed viral sensation from Olivie Blake, The Atlas Six--now newly revised and edited with additional content. • The tag #theatlassix has millions of views on TikTok • A dark academic debut fantasy with an established cult following that reads like The Secret History meets The Umbrella Academy • The first in an explosive trilogy The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation. Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, unwilling halves of an unfathomable whole, who exert uncanny control over every element of physicality. Reina Mori, a naturalist, who can intuit the language of life itself. Parisa Kamali, a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious, navigating worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova, an empath easily mistaken for a manipulative illusionist, who can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through illusions to a new structure of reality—an ability so rare that neither he nor his peers can fully grasp its implications. When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will. Most of them. "Lethally smart. Filled with a cast of brilliantly realized characters, each entangled with one another in torturously delicious ways, The Atlas Six will grip you by the throat and refuse to let go. Olivie Blake is a mind-blowing talent. " — Chloe Gong, author of NYT Bestselling These Violent Delights "The Atlas Six is a fantasy novel that understands that what the people want is more dark academia stories with flawless vibes and aesthetics and hot morally fraudulent characters who are constantly on the verge of either killing each other or fucking each other. I'm the people." — chai, viral book reviewer @proyearner

The Atlas Six

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Katie Lowe

Some adhesive residue on back cover from price stickers.

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

This page-turning, harrowing debut is the story of a girl trying to fit in, whose obsessive new friends and desperation to belong leads her to places she’d never imagined...dark, dangerous, and possibly even violent. “The Furies is a haunting tale of angry, young women, the fates they hold and furies they possess. Katie Lowe steers her juggernaut through twists of madness, revenge and murder to a finish that resonates deeply. It still hasn’t left me.” —Peter Filardi, screenwriter of The Craft “Murder and witchcraft mix with a heady cocktail of drugs, booze, and revenge in this elegant, pitch-perfect coming-of-age story.” —Kirkus ~~~ In 1998, a sixteen-year-old girl is found dead. She’s posed on a swing on her boarding school’s property, dressed all in white, with no known cause of death. Whispers and rumors swirl, with no answers. But there are a few who know what happened; there is one girl who will never forget. One year earlier: a new student, Violet, steps on the campus of Elm Hollow Academy, an all-girl’s boarding school on the outskirts of a sleepy coastal town. This is her fresh start, her chance to begin again in the wake of tragedy, leave her demons behind. Bright but a little strange, uncertain and desperate to fit in, she soon finds herself invited to an advanced study group, led by her alluring and mysterious art teacher, Annabel. There, with three other girls—Alex, Grace, and Robin—the five of them delve into the school’s long-buried grim history: of Greek and Celtic legends; of the school founder’s “academic” interest in the occult; of gruesome 17th century witch trials. Annabel does her best to convince the girls that her classes aren’t related to ancient rites and rituals, and that they are just history and mythology. But the more she tries to warn the girls off the topic, the more they are drawn to it, and the possibility that they can harness magic for themselves. Violet quickly finds herself wrapped up in this heady new world of lawless power—except she is needled by the disappearance of a former member of the group, one with whom Violet shares an uncanny resemblance. As her friends’ actions take a turn for the darker and spiral out of control, she begins to wonder who she can trust, all the while becoming more deeply entangled. How far will these young girls go to protect one another...or to destroy one another?

The Furies

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Heather Webb

Connecticut

A Novel of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner





It was the tumultuous romance that scandalized the world: Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner fought, loved, and lived life to the hilt. Now their unbridled story is brought vividly to life by Heather Webb, the bestselling author of Meet Me in Monaco and The Next Ship Home.



In the golden age of Hollywood, two of the brightest stars would define--and defy--an era...

She was the small-town southern beauty transformed into a Hollywood love goddess. He was the legendary crooner whose voice transfixed the world. They were Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra. Separately they were irresistible; together they were an explosive combination.

Ava's star is rising just as Frank's career--and public image as a family man--is taking a hit. Gone are the days of the screaming bobbysoxers and chart-topping hits. Ava, however, finds herself gracing the front page of every tabloid in America. Jealousy and cheating abound, and when the two succumb to their temperaments and their vices, their happiness is threatened at every turn.

As the pair ride the rollercoaster of success and failure, passion and anger, they both wonder if the next turn will be the end of their careers, and most devastating of all--the end of all they've shared.

A captivating novel with a star-studded cast spanning continents and decades, Strangers in the Night brings to life the most riveting love story of the twentieth century.



Strangers in the Night

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Libba Bray

Paperback edition, from a smoke free home

California

As Gemma, along with her friends from the Spence Academy, try to stop The Order, a mysterious group her late mother was once part of, from taking over the enchanted realms, she must sacrifice her friendships to discover her true destiny. Reprint.

The Sweet Far Thing

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Laura Steven

Add this ya horror gem to your dark academia reading list!! So good!!

A sapphic enemies-to-lovers retelling of Jekyll & Hyde, this dark academia thriller follows two roommates who must solve an infamous cold case of serial murders on their campus after an arcane ritual gone wrong prompts another death. Ten years ago, four students lost their lives in the infamous unsolved North Tower murders at the elite Carvell Academy of the Arts, forcing the school to close its doors. ​ Now Carvell is reopening, and fearless freshman Lottie Fitzwilliam is determined to find out what really happened. But when her beautiful but standoffish roommate, Alice Wolfe, stumbles upon a sinister soul-splitting ritual in a book hidden in Carvell’s library, the North Tower claims another victim. Is there a killer among them . . . or worse, within them? Exploring possession and ambition, lust and bloodlust, femininity and violence, The Society for Soulless Girls is perfect for fans of The Secret History, A Lesson in Vengeance, and The Grimrose Girls.

The Society for Soulless Girls

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Jessica Goodman

At an exclusive prep school on Long Island, Jill Newman looks forward to her senior year as a member of the school's most elite clique, the Players, until new evidence surfaces about the murder of her close friend Shaila.

They Wish They Were Us

9a173e53-84ae-409d-98fb-329d520f9129-1

David Bell

Indiana

The competitive selection process for a prized college scholarship turns deadly in the latest thriller from USA Today bestselling author David Bell.


On a beautiful spring day, six college students with nothing in common besides a desperate inability to pay for school gather to compete for the prestigious Hyde Fellowship.
 
Milo--The front-runner
Natalia--The brain
James--The rule follower
Sydney--The athlete
Duffy--The cowboy
Emily--The social justice warrior
 
The six of them must surrender their devices when they enter Hyde House, an aging Victorian structure that sits in a secluded part of campus.
 
Once inside, the doors lock behind them. The students are not allowed to leave until they spend eight hours with a college administrator who will do almost anything to keep the school afloat, and Nicholas Hyde, the privileged and notoriously irresponsible heir to the Hyde family fortune. If the students leave before time is up, they'll be immediately disqualified.
 
But when one of the six finalists drops dead, the other students fear they're being picked off one by one. With a violent protest raging outside, and no way to escape, the survivors viciously turn on each other.
 
The Finalists is a chilling and profound look at the lengths both students and colleges will go to survive in a resource-starved academic world.

The Finalists

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Leigh Bardugo

Illinois

"Readers will be wowed." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. The Ivy League is going straight to hell in the sequel to the smash New York Times bestseller Ninth House from #1 bestselling author Leigh Bardugo.

"Bardugo's imaginative reach is brilliant." -Stephen King

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy "Alex" Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory--even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can't call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies' most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren't just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she'll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university's very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo's signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.

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Ashley Winstead

In My Dreams I Hold a Knife

Victoria Lee

A Lesson in Vengeance

Carrie Doyle

The Murder Game

Laura Pohl

The Grimrose Girls

Alex Michaelides

The Maidens

Daphne Du Maurier

Jamaica Inn

Carrie Doyle

The Murder Game

Joanna Goodman

The Finishing School

Elisabeth Thomas

Catherine House

M. L. Rio

If We Were Villains

M. L Rio

If we were villains puzzle set

Alex Michaelides

The Maidens

R. J. Jacobs

This Is How We End Things

Olivie Blake

The Atlas Six

Katie Lowe

The Furies

Heather Webb

Strangers in the Night

Libba Bray

The Sweet Far Thing

Alex Michaelides

The Maidens

M. L. Rio

If We Were Villains

Laura Steven

The Society for Soulless Girls

Jessica Goodman

They Wish They Were Us

David Bell

The Finalists

Alex Michaelides

The Maidens

Leigh Bardugo

Hell Bent