Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books
Date of publication: January 16th, 2024
Genre: Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Mystery, Fiction, Adult, Suspense, Crime, Adult Fiction
Purchase Links: Kindle | Audible | B&N | AbeBooks | WorldCat
Goodreads Synopsis:
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.
A tantalizing thriller about the nature of friendship and belonging, about loyalty, envy, and betrayal—another gripping novel from an author quickly becoming the gold standard in psychological suspense.
First Line:
One day we were strangers and the next we were friends. That’s usually how it works with girls.
Only If You’re Lucky by Stacy Willingham
Important things you need to know about the book:
Pace: Only If You’re Lucky had a medium-fast pace.
POV: Only If You’re Lucky is told from Margot’s 1st person POV.
Trigger/Content Warning: Only If You’re Lucky has trigger and content warnings. If any of these triggers you, I suggest not reading the book. They are:
- Death
- Grief
- Murder
- Toxic Friendship
- Infidelity
- Vomit
- Alcohol
- Drug Use
- Stalking
- Gaslighting
- Animal Death
- Domestic Abuse
- Eating Disorder
- Emotional Abuse
- Misogyny
- Rape
- Toxic Relationship
- Injury/Injury Detail
- Mental Illness
- Physical Abuse
- Sexual Assault
- Violence
- Blood
Sexual Content: There is moderate sexual content in Only If You’re Lucky.
Language: here is moderate swearing in Only If You’re Lucky. There is also language used that might make some readers uncomfortable or offend them.
Setting: Only If You’re Lucky is set in and around the college town of Rutledge, South Carolina. There are also some scenes set in The Outer Banks.
Age Range: I recommend Only If You’re Lucky to anyone over 21.
Plot Synopsis (as spoiler-free as I can get):
When her best friend, Eliza, dies three weeks after graduation, Margot can barely function. She spends her freshman year hiding in her dorm, studying and playing it safe. That is until Lucy Sharpe bursts into Margot’s life. Loud, brash, and magnetic, Lucy demands attention wherever she goes. And for some reason, Lucy has honed in on Margot as a friend. Before she knows it, Margot starts coming out of her shell. Soon, she is best friends with Lucy and moves into the house Lucy rented with two other girls. But, things start to unravel when a member of the fraternity (who owns the house and shares a backyard) is murdered at the end of a week of pledging. Soon after, Lucy goes missing. What does Margot know? Why was the frat boy killed? Why did Lucy go missing? And who was Lucy?
Main Characters:
The main characters in Only If You’re Lucky are Margot and Lucy. I will offer advice about Margot (since the book is told from her POV): She is a very unreliable narrator. I couldn’t tell, throughout the book, if she was holding back the truth on certain things or just lying. Her grief (and guilt) over Eliza’s death colored her view of certain events and people.
Lucy, on the other hand, was an enigma. She was a whirlwind of activity and seemed to have her hand in everything. I was surprised by her background when it was revealed. But, in a way, it did make sense.
My review:
Only If You’re Lucky is the second book I have read by Stacy Willingham, and it has cemented her as a favorite for me in this genre. I enjoyed reading this book and was utterly surprised at the twists (and yes, there are several) that the author reveals at the end of the book.
The main storyline centers around Margot, her grief over Eliza’s death, her flashbacks to the events leading up to Eliza’s death, Lucy, and the events leading up to and past Lucy’s disappearance. The storyline was well-written and did keep me on my feet. The layers that it had was excellent. Once I peeled back one layer, the author revealed another.
The thriller/suspense angle of Only If You’re Lucky was terrific. The author didn’t hesitate to throw Margot into the thick of things when she started living with Lucy. There was a point where I did think that maybe she was a little crazy (because of her intense dislike of Levi). Let’s remember the twists. Those twists made the book. I figured out one, but the others took me completely by surprise. Like, my mouth dropped, and me saying, “No freaking way,” surprised.
The author switches back and forth between the present day (during the police investigation into Lucy’s disappearance) and the events leading up to everything. I found it a whirlwind, but it worked. The author kept those two storylines apart until the end, when she merged them. And the way she combined them was pretty crafty.
The end of Only If You’re Lucky was terrific. I was surprised by the things that were revealed about Lucy and Margot. Things I didn’t even see coming and that I, like Margot, thought Levi did. I was also surprised at the very end events of the book, where the author explained Lucy’s disappearance. And that was the biggest surprise of them all.
Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books, NetGalley, and Stacy Willingham for allowing me to read and review this ARC of Only If You’re Lucky. All opinions stated in this review are mine.
If you enjoy reading books similar to Only If You’re Lucky, then you will enjoy these books:
Other books by Stacy Willingham:
Escape Into Reading 
This one sounds good. I do enjoy her books, so hope to read or listen to this one as soon as I can. Nice review, Jolie.
LikeLike
Thank you Carla. It was really good and very twisty!!
LikeLike