Morton Academy to położona na odludziu i niemal odcięta od świata elitarna szkoła z internatem dla starannie wyselekcjonowanej młodzieży. Lizzie odnalazła w niej nowy dom. Dla dziewczyny oraz paczki jej klasowych znajomych nauka w Morton to przepustka do lepszego życia. Więc kiedy szkolną społecznością wstrząsa seria morderstw, uczniów ogarnia panika. Grupka przyjaciół próbuje rozwikłać zagadkę, zanim sami staną się ofiarami.
Ale kim jest tajemniczy morderca? I czy uda się go powstrzymać?
Kolejny wciągający thriller dla młodzieży Cynthii Murphy, autorki książki „Czeka Cię śmierć”.
Trigger warnings: morderstwo i śmierć, krew, opisy obrażeń.
Cynthia Murphy is the bestselling author of a number of YA thrillers, including the BookTok sensation Win Lose Kill Die.
She has a long-standing love affair with all things scary, reading Point Horrors before graduating to Stephen King in her misguided teens. Studying for a degree in Art History and Archaeology meant that she developed a thirst for anything old, beautiful and very often dead. She tries to combine this with contemporary settings in her writing to make unique and chilling modern stories.
Cynthia lives in her hometown of Manchester with her husband and their rescue dog, Loli, who you will see a lot of on TikTok and Instagram @CynthiaMurphyYA
you will like this if you liked riverdale. but since no one in their right mind likes riverdale, no one in their right mind will like this. unless you're 11.
Who is targeting the head girls at the elite Morton Academy, which exclusively accepts exceptionally distinguished, overachieving, and gifted students?
A series of murders has sent shockwaves through the academy, with the victims being the head girls and deputies who are part of the secretive society known as 'Jewel and Bone.' Suspicions are running high, and everyone is wondering who the killer could be. Could it be someone willing to go to any lengths to claim the coveted title of Head Girl? But the big question remains - who?
Could it be a member of the secret society, one that some students have sworn allegiance to? Or perhaps it's someone involved in a sinister cult? Even a teacher with a shadowy past is not ruled out.
Liz, who barely survived a traumatic head injury and spent the entire summer in the hospital, is now attempting to recover while grappling with the after-effects. She finds herself at the center of these unsettling events. First, Morgan drowns, and then a series of incidents unfolds, threatening the members of the secret society one by one. Liz is living in fear for her life, and she relies on her close-knit circle of friends: Taylor, Kat, Taylor's boyfriend Marcus, and her newfound crush, Cole, who recently joined the academy and is now entangled in the chaos. Time is ticking, and a relentless and highly dangerous individual lurks in the shadows, their identity carefully concealed as they do whatever it takes to achieve their goals. But who is this mystery person?
The circle of suspects tightens, and only a few remain untouched. Even their trusted teacher may harbor dark secrets from her past and family history, making her a potential perpetrator. Liz must uncover the mastermind behind this sinister scheme to protect everyone, but can she do it on her own? In this atmosphere of suspicion and uncertainty, no one is above suspicion, and nothing is as it seems.
Overall, this is a fast-paced, action-packed YA mystery and psychological thriller that is perfect for those seeking a gripping page-turner with a twisty ending. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a thrilling read.
Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s/Delacorte Press for providing me with a digital review copy in exchange for my honest feedback.
Wait this book was actually bad. Maybe i hate it cause the writing style was so random and felt too trying to be mainstream and relatable, which just broke the flow of the story. So many parts of the story felt so unnecessary like page fillers.
The ending also just didn’t make sense.
Spoilers: The chapters we are reading, the normal ones, don’t seem to indicate that she isn’t scared, that she knows who did it. Like her tone does seem frightened and scared and wanting to find out who did it. She offers to search around and look for things, just for her to what? get caught? it doesn’t make much sense. The whole bathroom scene, why would she lie to us the readers about the steam in the mirror. Maybe it’s be different if she just said it, but she was lying in her first person perspective— it just didn’t make sense. And her whole personality just changed at the end, we didn’t see any of this side of her at all— there was no foreshadowing no anything. It really doesn’t make sense. In her own mind she seemed so scared and shocked about things, an unreliable narrator has to have a reason why they are unreliable to us. Personally, i hate it when authors make plot twists like these where the tone of the entire book doesn’t add up and they just change it at the end. There were also questions posed that were never answered— like how did Marcus know about Frank’s death. The main character does she much investigating and questioning in her own head that doesn’t make sense if she was the killer. It felt like such an ‘aha this would be such a good plot twist,’ when really it’s just lame.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
The students at Morton Academy are high-achievers, selected based on academic excellence. So when a series of murders target the school's brightest and best, the pressure is on. Someone is determined to stop at nothing to clear their path to the top. But who is it? And can they be stopped?
All my reviews have the possibility of spoilers, be warned!
The reason I wanted to read this book was because of the first page. I was instantly gripped and interested. I thought the idea of the book was great and was excited to read it.
I didn't mean to kill the first one. Honest. It was just... too easy, I suppose. She was already in the water, and when I plunged my hands in to help her out, I kind of... changed my mind. Something inside snapped. I held Little Miss Perfect's head down and waited for her to stop thrashing around. It took longer than I thought, and she was just... floating there. Limp. Pathetic, really. 'Accidental death,' according to the experts. That's nearly right. Like I said, it's not like I set out to do it. It felt good, though.
To me, this book was a miss. I feel like there wasn't enough time to build the suspense of the murders so the tension wasn't really there. There wasn't enough time to connect to the characters either so I just didn't feel anything as I was reading it. With more buildup, this book could have been great since there was potential.
Another issue is that the plotline overall felt quite predictable. I wasn't surprised by any of the twists which made it less enjoyable.
I did like the little romance side plot, it was a great addition. But again because of the lack of time to develop the characters it just felt a little rushed.
I think someone who prefers YA would enjoy this book since it's short, quick, and not overly detailed in the gory dark aspects.
One of my most anticipated reads of 2022 and it did not disappoint. Win Lose Kill Die was the perfect way to kick off New Year!
Set at the historic Morton Academy, a school for high-achievers, everyone wants to be Head Girl and gain all the prestige and success that comes with the title to secure their futures. But someone is determined to take that crown for themselves and the bodies start piling up! Liv, Taylor, Kat, Marcus and Cole are all determined to find out what exactly is going on. Is it the secret society that they have sworn allegiance too? The history of a cult that plagues Morton Academy? Or even Creepy Billy with his love of unusual plants. They need to find the truth and quickly … before it’s too late!
Win Lose Kill Die is a fast past thriller with all the slasher vibes of a 90s horror movie (along with some little Easter eggs that I fully appreciated along the way). It’s a deliciously fast paced read with characters who you root for from the first page.
I love me a bit of murder and this book doesn’t hold back. I also especially loved the setting of Morton Academy with it’s rich and scandalous history and would love another book set in this world. Maybe a prequel to explore its backstory or a sequel to see what’s next.
Cynthia Murphy has become one of my favourite writers and I can’t wait to see what’s next!
If you love teen thrillers with slasher vibes, dark academia, secret societies, cults and plenty of murder and mystery then this is the book for you!
At the very very beginning, I though it might’ve been Liz. When we got the initial killer chapter and then straight onto Liz, I was like this can’t be a coincidence. Not when they’re both in first person.
Then I thought it might be Marcus cause like… he seemed a bit shady, too good to be true (turns out he was just awesome). And he has the tiger balm, he was initially trying to get them to drop the investigation, ya know, stereotypical suspicious behaviour.
For a brief moment, I though it could be Kat (once again, the Tiger balm, amongst other things, like the bathroom message).
But, the character I kept on coming back to was Cole. Cole who flat out on our second time of meeting him was like “✨I like 🌸natural poisons🌸 UwU✨” Like, no offence but that’s just red flag behaviour when someone’s just been poisoned 🤷♀️
And then, Cole was ALWAYS the one that was there - he found Frank, he found Kat, he had ample opportunity to get to Taylor and he was there that night with Jameela.
So, Cole was my guy. There’s NO WAY that someone can be this much of a nice person and not be sus. I flat out thought that was going to be the premise of this was that Liz was going to be like “Oh nO - *betrayal*”.
No no. No no. Instead - INSTEAD - it turns out that we’ve got an unreliable narrator on our hands and she’s just been LYING to us this whole time 😱 Like girlie straight up has been like “they’re dead 😮” when she MURDERED them??? Like okay then 🤷♀️
And like why would she want to START the investigation? Like girly was out here like “gotta do our part to get justice for our friends ⭐️” when SHE COULD GET CAUGHT??? Is it just some thrill of the chase thing???
Like, don’t get me wrong. It makes sense that it was Liz after she explained in her whole monologue about it, and clearly some people picked up on it but like WHY WAS EVERYONE ELSE SO SUS??? WHY DOES COLE LIKE ✨nAtUraL pOiSoNs✨??? WHY WOULD SHE POISON HER OWN TEA (making Cole once again the only one unaffected)?????
I NEED ANSWERS
In summary, I’m shook, I should trust my first instinct (because it’s usually right) and I owe Cole an apology 🤷♀️
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
SPOILERS So I'm a sucker for mystery-murder books and this one just happened to be in line for me to read next. But man I live for a good plot-twist and that one at the end BLEW MY MIND The reason my rating is probably like 3.6 is because I didn't get hooked as much as other books, fr me it just seemed like people kept dying and dying and I know that's intentional to keep the book fast paced but it just didn't hook me as much. Just my personal feeling, feel free to disagree with me! So I get why people rate it 5 stars but I just couldn't do it, even though I did enjoy it a lot! Also can someone explain to me how they figured out Liz was it all along, because it totally hit me by surprise and I did not see any clues that it was her doing before the big reveal, maybe I was just oblivious, or not Idk but I'm curious what gave it away But yeah I would still totally recommend to read it!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Win Lose Kill Die by Cynthia Murphy is a young adult thriller novel that has a touch of slasher vibes from horror movies. The story in Win Lose Kill Die is a fast paced one told from the point of view of an unreliable narrator.
Those that attend the elite Morton Academy are overachievers that are already guaranteed into the colleges of their choice after graduation. But at Morton there is the elite of the elite at the school who are asked to join the secret society known as Jewel and Bone.
At the center of the secret society there is the “head girl” but no sooner than one is named that student is murdered. Liz and her group of friends Taylor, Kat, Marcus and Cole find themselves investigating just what is going on at the academy before they end up the next victim when yet another murder occurs shortly after the first.
Win Lose Kill Die by Cynthia Murphy was what I’d call a solid young adult thriller novel but one that wasn’t without a few flaws. The story is one that is fast paced which leads to not a whole lot of character development with the action pushing the plot along so I can’t say I wouldn’t have liked a bit more. The ending is a decent twist to the tale but also one that didn’t overly surprise me either so when said and done I rated this one at three and half stars and would give the author another read someday.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
What the hell. This book was INSANE. That plottwist was something I definitely thought of a few times but then I thought to myself “the author wouldn’t do that would they?” and boy was I WRONG. 4 stars because the book felt slow at some points but other than that it was pretty good
Pffffff. No words yet for the ending of this page-turning book. However, very thrilling book with many lurid activities ... I was really into the story, but didn't like the ending because, well, first of all I was wrong about who the villain was and second I don't like who the villain really is haha! Anyways, great murder mystery + academia+ romance vibes in this book!
Win Lose Kill Die is the second book out by this author. It takes place as a private school where the best and the brightest are groomed for greatness. One of the best positions in the school is Head Girl. That position opens all of the doors to the top. The problem is that someone keeps killing anyone who assumes that position.
I have to say that I really enjoyed this YA mystery. It was unpredictable and kept me on my toes. I thought it was going in a certain direction, but I was way off. That ending was a complete surprise. I loved it! I enjoyed all of the characters. I also loved that no one was safe. The private school setting with a secret society set a great creepy atmosphere. I won't talk to much more because I don't want to spoil anything. I highly recommend this one.
How can you start with such an amazing, cool opening line and then butcher the book into something so... Bad. There was so little history about the whole dark academy, secret society thing. It made me sad, but I continued on reading the book. It became so predictable and written in a way that was sooo boring. The only thing I will remember about this book in years will be - don't let yourself be fooled with the first line and interesting premise. Here's a perfect example how downhill can a book go if you get excited a little bit too much.
❥- To be quite honest I feel like this book had so much potential. But it’s lacking SOOO much and the beginning is a bit too slow and boring for me. This is definitely not a fast paced mystery thriller like i’m used to. Also I think the killer behind all the murders makes NO sense so the ending was pretty disappointing. The plot itself sounded so good to me but it fell very short on the deliverance. It’s less than 300 pages so I didn’t expect some grand slam type of story but I at least expected it to be better than what it was lol. But at least I can say I got to experience it and it’s a short book, and easy to get through (sort of if you can get past the first 40 pages). There’s definitely better out there, but I can see the author has potential and maybe in the future i’ll give another one of their books a try!
i just keep saying “oh my god holy shit” over and over again. THIS BOOK WAS FUCKING BONKERS. at first i was like “this is all so predictable…” BUT IT ACTUALLY WASN’T. LIKE AT ALL. there was one point in the book where i was like “its this person. no wait. its THIS person. no…. ok maybe this guy. actually wait no. lol wouldnt it be funny if it was THIS PERSON. its not but what if.”
idk man i haven’t read a good thriller standalone like that in a WHILE. i’m in awe. CYNTHIA YOU ATE GIRL!!!!!
Nie wiem, czy jestem fanką końcówki, ale na pewno mocno mnie zaskoczyła. Ale sama książka jest tak wciągająca i tak doskonale się ją czyta, że absolutnie nie mogłam się od niej oderwać i przysłowiowy "jeszcze jeden rozdział" serio zmieniał się w 100stron!
What a load of BS. I was really enjoying this until I got to the end and realized that the first-person narrator had been lying the entire time. I'm okay with an 'unreliable' narrator, but not so okay with a narrator who's been actively acting to deceive the reader for the entire book. Not cool.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.