You Will Be Mine by Natasha Preston Published by Sourcebooks Fire on February 6th 2018
Pages: 304
Goodreads
ROSES ARE REDVIOLETS ARE BLUEWATCH YOUR BACKI'M COMING FOR YOU
Lylah and her friends can't wait to spend a night out together. Partying is the perfect way to let loose from the stress of life and school, and Lylah hopes that hitting the dance floor with Chace, her best friend, will bring them closer together. She's been crushing on him since they met. If only he thought of her the same way...
The girls are touching up their makeup and the guys are sliding on their coats when the doorbell rings. No one is there. An envelope sits on the doormat. It's an anonymous note addressed to their friend Sonny. A secret admirer? Maybe. They all laugh it off.
Except Sonny never comes home. And a new note arrives:
YOUR TURN
4 Nuts
2018 is apparently the year of YA serial killer mysteries. So if you’ve just read Maureen Johnson’s TRULY DEVIOUS and want more of the same then this book is right up your alley. Though with less of the Christie feel and no flashbacks.
Like my earlier mystery read of the year, the murderer in Natasha Preston’s YOU WILL BE MINE uses the cut out letters to send creepy missives to our protagonists. One by one Lylah’s friends are picked off by a sadistic psycho, but don’t be fooled by the obvious red herring!
The characters are all pretty simple. The tragedy-worn heroine, the love interest (who, wow, is bland as they come), the best friend, the outlier, the lover-boy, and the love interest’s best friend. Yeah, it’s that easy. Like a teen slasher flick. But the characters are likable enough and the MC holds most of the book together on how she handles each increasing aggression against her friends. And they are a tight group, you do feel it as each one is picked off.
Anyone who has read any mystery novel in history or watched a crime film or TV show will pick up very quickly that what seems obvious cannot in fact be the answer they’re looking for. It’s too simple. So then your mind will turn to many of the other options, and there are plenty! As usual I picked up on the right answer pretty quickly, but it’s really not as easy to figure out as one might expect. If you’re looking for a good thinker of a mystery, I think this one will suffice for most readers.
Certainly this book is not as well plotted as TRULY DEVIOUS but it has the added fun of a Valentine’s Day theme to pump up the fun. And it is a bit on the gorier side, a Scream where TRULY DEVIOUS tends toward a classier Christie approach. I appreciate the differences, it sets the two books apart as their own thing. Plus these characters are older, college age rather than high school. Something I wish we would see more of (YA readers are approaching college after all).
I recommend this book for fans of a good, bloody mystery with a psychological component. It’s not a romp by any sense, but those of us with darker tastes will certainly have fun with it.
What’s your favorite YA mystery book? Shhare your pick in the comments.
From my shelf to yours,
Erin
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