A pulpy, satisfying, and horror-filled page-turner.
A mysterious killer is on the trail of a motley crew of high schoolers.
Social outsiders Rick Hicks and his best friend, Martina Lopez, just need to get through senior year—and hopefully along the way they won’t get into any fistfights with classmates or be expelled. Maybe they’ll even find girlfriends and avoid being murdered. That final task soon becomes their primary assignment in this steadily suspenseful and occasionally gory thriller. Soon after school starts, the previous year’s yearbooks arrive, and everyone discovers a shocking prank: Someone replaced the yearbook superlatives with descriptions relating to death (“Zara Moxley, Most Likely to Choke on Her Own Words”). Rick and Martina appear as “Homecoming’s Cutest Corpses.” When the body of grouchy guidance counselor Mr. Stephens (“Most Likely to Sleep with the Fishes”) is pulled out of a local lake, the other potential victims team up to find out who’s behind the gruesome stunt. Before they can solve the case, a few of the amateur sleuths meet their predicted creepy, bloody, or strange ends. McBride slowly unravels the suspects and their motives, building up to a cinematically dramatic conclusion. White-presenting Rick’s non-murder-related concerns—his family’s financial struggles, his growing romantic feelings for classmate Nika Page, and his ride-or-die friendship with Martina (who’s cued Latine)—form the story’s emotional core, through which readers experience Meadowvale High’s horrific happenings.
A pulpy, satisfying, and horror-filled page-turner. (Thriller. 13-18)Pub Date: March 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593860403
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
An entertaining and atmospheric, though sometimes clumsy, exploration of the true cost of beauty.
In this retelling of a classic, a drama student’s obsession with beauty leads her down a dark—and possibly deadly—path.
Eighteen-year-old Penny Paxton is beginning her first year at Dorian Drama Academy in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she hopes to follow in her starlet mother’s footsteps—and earn the love that her mother has never seemed to offer. At Dorian, Penny is mentored by Royal Shakespeare Company legend Orlagh Camran, who makes her the compelling offer of a portrait by the Masked Painter, a mysterious artist with the ability to gift his subjects everlasting youth and beauty. But shortly after Penny’s portrait is complete, several of the Masked Painter’s subjects are found murdered. Fearing that she’s made a terrible mistake and may become the next victim, Penny, who’s gay, begins to investigate the murders with the help of an unlikely ally. As she attempts to uncover the truth surrounding the Masked Painter and the murders, she’s forced to reckon with her own toxic obsession with beauty. This chilling, atmospheric novel, inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray, is entertaining and full of twists, though some of the reveals feel contrived and some questions are left unanswered. The plot unravels at a leisurely pace but eventually builds to an action-packed (if somewhat convoluted) conclusion. Most characters are cued white.
An entertaining and atmospheric, though sometimes clumsy, exploration of the true cost of beauty. (content note, author’s note, bonus scene) (Fantasy thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781250346797
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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