The Only Survivors: a Novel

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Summary

From the New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls and "master of suspense, Megan Miranda" (Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl), a thrilling mystery about a group of former classmates who reunite to mark the tenth anniversary of a tragic accident—only to have one of the survivors disappear, casting fear and suspicion on the original tragedy. Seven hours in the past. Seven days in the present. Seven survivors remaining. Who would you save?A decade ago, two vans filled with high school seniors on a school service trip crashed into a Tennessee ravine—a tragedy that claimed the lives of multiple classmates and teachers. The nine students who managed to escape the river that night were irrevocably changed. A year later, after one of the survivors dies by suicide on the anniversary of the crash, the rest of them make a pact: to come together each year to commemorate that terrible night. To keep one another safe. To hold one another accountable. Or both. Their annual meeting place, a house on the Outer Banks, has long been a refuge. But by the tenth anniversary, Cassidy Bent has worked to distance herself from the tragedy, and from the other survivors. She's changed her mobile number. She's blocked the others' email addresses. This year, she is determined to finally break ties once and for all. But on the day of the reunion, she receives a text with an obituary attached: another survivor is gone. Now they are seven—and Cassidy finds herself hurling back toward the group, wild with grief—and suspicion. Almost immediately, something feels off this year. Cassidy is the first to notice when Amaya, annual organizer, slips away, overwhelmed. This wouldn't raise alarm except for the impending storm. Suddenly, they're facing the threat of closed roads and surging waters...again. Then Amaya stops responding to her phone. After all they've been through, she wouldn't willfully make them worry. Would she? And—as they promised long ago—each survivor will do whatever he or she can do to save one another. Won't they? A propulsive and chilling locked-box mystery filled with the dazzling hairpin twists that are the author's signature, The Only Survivors is New York Times bestselling author Megan Miranda's best novel yet.

Published Reviews

Booklist Review: "It would be hard to concoct a more promisingly sinister setting than a large oceanfront beach house with a maze-like interior and perilous outside balconies, surrounded by dunes and ocean on one of the Outer Banks islands off North Carolina. The setting affords plenty of hiding places for predators and plenty of opportunities for the weather itself to turn villainous. Miranda (The Last to Vanish, 2022) uses this setting to maximum effect, both as a plot device and as a way to inject steady droplets of terror into the narrative. The seven people gathered at the beach house, former high-school classmates, have come here for a week every year for 10 years. Is it to support each other emotionally on the anniversary of the tragedy that claimed the lives of 10 of their classmates and 2 teachers, or to make sure no one in the group reveals what really happened? A double narrative holds both present and past danger. The first narrative recounts what's happening in the present. The second dips into the minds of the survivors during the grueling hours of the tragic event itself. Both strands provide creepy hints as to what's troubling the survivors and why they might not all survive this particular reunion. Masterfully suspenseful."
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "At the start of this tempestuous, emotionally wrenching tale of courage, betrayal, guilt, and just maybe forgiveness from bestseller Miranda (The Last to Vanish), Cassidy Bent is reluctantly preparing for an annual ritual: the weeklong reunion at a secluded beach house on North Carolina's Outer Banks of what were initially nine survivors of a horrific accident a decade earlier when they were high school seniors and a dozen students and teachers died after the two vans carrying them home in rain-lashed darkness from a service trip in Tennessee plunged into a river. The former classmates are about the last people any of them want to see at this point--as well as the only ones who share the secrets of what they did to walk out of the woods alive. And now their number has shrunk to seven after the apparent death by suicide of a onetime close friend of Cassidy, the second such death. The suspense and danger escalate as the narrative alternates between the present and the night of the tragedy, even if the final shocker may strike some readers as contrived. Though not among Miranda's best, this remains an evocative excursion into darkness. Agent: Jennifer Joel, ICM Partners. (Apr.)"
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Additional Information

Subjects	Literature Thriller Suspense Fiction
Publisher	S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books2023
Language	English
ISBN	9781668010433