A dual-timeline mystery-thriller in the vein of The Inheritance Games and Truly Devious about a small-town competition taken too far, a slightly unhinged anti-heroine, and the lengths we go to for revenge.

SHE DID IT
by Emily Lloyd-Jones
Balzer + Bray/Macmillan, Summer 2027
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

When 17-year-old Madison Mercer hears the local sheriff investigated a tip about a body in a trunk, she’s not sure what’s more horrifying—that someone found the abandoned car in the woods or that it was empty. Because Maddy knows there’s a body in the trunk. That’s where she stashed it.

The previous summer, Maddy participates in the Lark: a wholly illegal scavenger hunt that takes teenagers through the woods thick with illegal weed, down abandoned train tunnels, and into locked houses. Mourning the death of her mother and the loss of her best friend who has recently moved away, Maddy decides to win the Lark at any cost. In the final trial of the Lark, a boy ends up dead. And Madison is found standing over the body. Luckily, her friends and new boyfriend all agree to help her stash the body in an abandoned car trunk.

When the body goes missing and the sheriff gets an anonymous tip, Maddy knows she needs to find the real killer… or risk being implicated. Because she didn’t do it.

Right?

As Maddy tries to unravel what really happened, she realizes that the game never truly ended. Because in the Lark, there’s only one rule: Trust no one in the dark.

Emily Lloyd-Jones grew up on a vineyard in rural Oregon, where she played in ever-green forests and learned to fear sheep. She currently resides in Northern California, where she enjoys wandering in redwood forests. Her other novels include Illusive, Deceptive, The Hearts We Sold, The Bone Houses, The Drowned Woods, The Wild Huntress, and most recently, Augusta Pine Does Not Exist.