Thrillers! Three Upcoming Teen Thrillerrrrs!

I recently got to read three really fun teen thrillers that will be released in the coming months! Most Likely to Murder by Lish McBride is coming out in March from Penguin. They Want Us Dead by CL Montblanc is coming out from St. Martin’s Press in May, and in July, we get No One Leaves the Manor by Kelly McWilliams from Little, Brown.

With each of these books, the author was new to me, and I enjoyed them all so much I’ve sought out other stuff by the authors since. They all offer fast-paced, enjoyable ensemble casts with a progressive perspective. And they all put teens in deadly peril.

Most Likely to Murder presents a contemporary high school setting where our two protagonists are best friends known for playing pranks. People start getting murdered in ways that seem connected to a prank version of their yearbook, so Rick and Martina come under some suspicion, but also, as it turns out, are being targeted themselves. Rick is really just trying to get by, helping his single mom with money troubles and taking care of his little sister. His best friend Martina’s big family considers him one of their own. They both have crushes on cute girls.

This is a town where teens get horribly murdered, sure, but it is also a town where the students of color don’t receive any specific racist bullying, and it doesn’t seem like anyone’s sexuality is socially problematic, either. I also appreciate that our protagonists get along well with their parents, who are good people who support their kids. A relief for me, someone who read teen books as a 90s teen.

In They Want Us Dead, a group of teen True Crime content creators are invited to a spooky mansion, where deaths occur. Our protagonist Sam is a nonbinary teen who uses their platform to shed light on crimes against LGBTQ+ teens. They have an internet bestie, who is also invited to the creepy mansion, and an internet nemesis, who (gasp!) is also also invited to the creepy mansion. There is an enemies to lovers arc, and the whole plot is a good dangerous time.

They Want Us Dead is an interesting mix of the extremely timely, with the teen content creators, and the old-fashioned setting of an isolated mansion. They get stranded at the mansion, no internet access (also gasp!) and people start dying.

No One Leaves the Manor is an outlier on this list because it has a supernatural element and is also set decades in the past. Like They Want Us Dead, it features a big spooky house, though!

In No One Leaves the Manor, four American debutantes are the finalists in a contest for a reclusive millionaire to choose her heir in 1921. They assemble in Greystone Manor, in the isolated backwoods of New England, and only working together will get them out alive. Interesting historical issues of racial prejudice, disability experience and gender and class stuff intersect here.

In each of these books, the teens facing peril have to work with each other, even if they don’t particularly like everything about each other, if they want to survive. They grow to recognize strengths in themselves and each other, and some of them don’t die horrifying deaths! Of course, many of them do.