Preview Ten
Shhhh!
Don't spread the word! Three-day weekend. House party.
White Rock House on Henry Island.
You do not want to miss it.
It was supposed to be the weekend of their lives—three days on Henry Island at an exclusive house party. Best friends Meg and Minnie each have their own reasons for wanting to be there, which involve their school's most eligible bachelor, T. J. Fletcher, and look forward to three glorious days of boys, bonding, and fun-filled luxury.
But what they expect is definitely not what they get, and what starts out as fun turns dark and twisted after the discovery of a DVD with a sinister message: Vengeance is mine.
Suddenly, people are dying, and with a storm raging outside, the teens are cut off from the rest of the world. No electricity, no phones, no internet, and a ferry that isn't scheduled to return for three days. As the deaths become more violent and the teens turn on each other, can Meg find the killer before more people die? Or is the killer closer to her than she could ever imagine?
From BooklistAfter years of living on the fringes of the Seattle high-school social scene, Meg and Minnie are finally making a comeback. At an exclusive house party on a remote island with their mutual crush T. J., emotionally fragile Minnie is thrilled, but her protector, introverted writer Meg, is leery, and with good reason. As soon as they meet the other eight guests, things are amiss. The hostess never arrives. The only DVD bears an eerie, foreboding message. The electricity goes out. And then Lori is found hanging from the rafters. As the bodies begin to pile up and clues appear, Meg searches for the killer among them. In the esteemed tradition of teen horror fiction, Ten hits all the high notes: a stormy night, illicit liaisons, cut phone lines, suspicious disappearances, double-crosses, secret histories, and plenty of twists. Though most of the short-lived characters are one-dimensional by necessity, Meg is sympathetic and complex enough to cheer for as she pieces together the nightmare weekend and tries to escape alive. Grades 8-11. --Heather Booth
Review“In the esteemed tradition of teen horror fiction, TEN hits all the high notes: a stormy night, illicit liaisons, cut phone lines, suspicious disappearances, double-crosses, secret histories, and plenty of twists.” (ALA Booklist )
“Agatha Christie meets Gossip Girl in McNeil’s throwback to old-school thrillers.” (Publishers Weekly )
“A quick-paced thriller full of half-facts and red herrings that take readers through the twists and turns of a deadly weekend.” (School Library Journal )
“Don’t expect to put it down once you’ve picked it up.” (Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books )
“A breathless read.” (Kirkus Reviews )
“Gretchen McNeil’s TEN is my new number one! I jumped at every creaking floorboard in my house and on the page. This is sure to be a teen thriller classic!” (Nancy Holder, Bram Stoker Award winning author of THE SCREAMING SEASON )
“TEN is a real page turner! Gretchen McNeil knows how to plot a thriller: Her setup is flawless and the suspense kept me on the edge of my seat.” (Christopher Pike, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the THIRST series and REMEMBER ME )
Praise for POSSESS: “With demons, secrets, and a butt-kicking heroine, POSSESS is a whole lotta dark and twisted fun!” (Kimberly Derting, author of the Body Finder series )
Praise for POSSESS: “”A dark, unique, and intelligent novel with frightening twists around every corner that left me breathless.” (Courtney Allison Moulton, author of ANGELFIRE )
Praise for POSSESS: “McNeil strikes a fine balance between outright scares and sarcastic humor…[a] light, entertaining read.” (ALA Booklist )
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