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Spoilers Beyond This Point

Characters:

• Margot: our main character
• Eliza: Margot’s best friend who died after graduating high school
• Lucy: a popular girl at Margot’s college
• Sloane: one of Lucy’s friends, very studious
• Nicole: Lucy other friend, dating a frat guy
• Trevor: Nicole’s boyfriend, Kappa Nu president
• Levi: a frat pledge, dated Eliza before she died
• Danny: a frat pledge, went to the same high school as Lucy
• Detective Frank: lead detective looking for Lucy
• Mr. & Mrs. Jefferson: Eliza’s parents

Summary (with Spoilers)

Lucy is one of four girls who live in a house next to Kappa Nu’s fraternity. The fraternity owns the house and uses it for upperclassmen if there’s too many boys, and rents it when they don’t need it. Lucy already lived in the house with Sloane and Nicole, but she invited Margot to live with them because they needed a fourth roommate. The book starts with Lucy’s disappearance, then quickly backtracks to give you more information. In the interest of not being confusing, my summary is going to go in chronological order as much as possible.

“If Levi Butler never came into our lives that day, invading our space as the two of us huddled beneath the dock, legs cramped and fingers pruned, Eliza would still be here, safe, with me. How interesting: that female instinct to duck, to hide, like prey catching sight of glowing eyes in the night.”

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham

Before moving in with the other girls, Margot spent her freshman year extremely depressed. Her best friend since childhood, Eliza Jefferson, is the one who really wanted to go to Rutledge College. Margot had been looking at other schools and was pretty set on Duke, but Eliza convinced her to go to Rutledge so they could be roommates. Unfortunately, Eliza died a few weeks after their high school graduation, falling in an abandoned building where a group of kids were partying. Eliza was with her boyfriend, Levi, who Margot hated. He had been driving a wedge between Eliza and Margot for a while, and Margot is convinced he’s the reason Eliza’s dead. Margot decided to still go to Rutledge to honor Eliza, but is so depressed that she’s stayed in her dorm room for her entire freshman year.

“My own parents weren’t thrilled about me ditching out on a summer back home, but at the same time, when I explained the situation—a group of friends, real friends, the kind my mother’s friends were so sure I would find—they begrudgingly agreed to send me a security deposit and the first three months’ worth of rent.”

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham 

Then one day, Lucy approaches Margot and asks if she’d like to stay for the summer and live with Lucy and her two other roommates. Not wanting to go home and be reminded of Eliza at every turn, Margot agrees. She moves in and quickly learns that the other two girls, Sloane and Nicole, are wary of her appearance. However, they welcome her in and show her around the house. They then reveal that their yard is attached to the neighboring frat house by a shed that opens on both sides. The house is also legally attached to the fraternity, so the boys technically control the house. This means that the girls are often asked to attend parties, spend time with the pledges, and go along with their harebrained schemes. After getting a tour of her own house, Margot is taken to the frat house to be introduced and get a tour of the frat house as well.

While at the fraternity, she’s told someone from her hometown is pledging at the fraternity, and then comes face to face with Levi. Margot panics and immediately leaves the house. Her new roommates chase her down and ask what happened, so Margot tells them the whole story of Eliza’s death. After the interaction, she and Levi avoid each other at fraternity functions and everything seems fine.

“‘What are you afraid of more than anything?’ she asks, resting her head in her hand. ‘Anything in the whole world?’ ‘Heights and small spaces.’  ‘Heights and small spaces,’ she echoes as she finishes her drink. ‘Good to know.’”

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham

Lucy works at a bowling alley with a bar, and often sneaks the girls in after hours for free booze. On one such night, she also invites several of the frat boys, including Levi. Lucy proposes they play Spin the Pin, a combination of Truth or Dare and Spin the Bottle. The game goes well until the bottle lands on Levi. Lucy seems to take a special interest in him, and asks him about his biggest fears. As the line of questioning gets more and more intense, Margot realizes that while everyone else is very drunk, Lucy seems stone cold sober. And Margot can’t figure out why Lucy would be so fixated on Levi, since Margot’s the one with a personal connection to him.

“Then I watch as Lucy’s long fingers weave their way through his hair, holding him close, his lips on hers as she goes in for a kiss.”

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham

Soon, it’s Christmas break, and while Margot has stayed in town for the summer and Thanksgiving breaks, she knows it’s time to go home. Sloane and Nicole are also going home, but Lucy is staying at the house. Margot invites Lucy home with her, but Lucy insists she’s fine. When Margot goes home, her parents encourage her to visit Eliza’s parents, so she finally bites the bullet on Christmas Day and goes over. Only Mr. Jefferson is home, and after some chit chat, Margot goes up to Eliza’s room.

Looking around the room, Margot finds an envelope full of cash stuck behind Eliza’s dresser, with an address for Fairfield, NC. Then Margot gets a feeling like she’s being watched. Eliza and Levi were neighbors, which is how they had met, but Eliza had always said she felt like Levi was watching her. Margot, remembering this, looks out the window and sees Levi talking to none other than Lucy.

Margot runs over immediately and finds Lucy already at the front door, waiting for her. Lucy explains that she came for Christmas, and Margot’s parents had told her where to find Margot. Then she saw Levi’s truck next door and went over to say hi. Margot is confused by everything, but shakes it off and brings Lucy home with her for the week.

“The rest of the week is nothing more than a blur: all of us sitting in the sand, eyes wet and red, watching the coast guard appear in the distance.”

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham 

Once everyone’s back from Christmas break, the boys invite the girls to an overnight stay on a nearby island to celebrate the new pledges’ initiation. As the group gets drunk, fights start to break out. First Trevor, the president, gets in a drunken brawl with Levi that ends with Trevor making Levi switch shirts. Then the girls start bickering with each other. The next morning, everyone wakes up hungover and confused. Margot leaves the camping area to throw up, and stumbles over Levi’s dead body.

The police are called immediately, and no one can figure out what happened. While the kids are convinced someone killed him, the police quickly decide he must’ve tripped while black-out drunk and died from the injury overnight. Lucy confronts Margot and asks her if she killed Levi, while Margot insists that she didn’t. Meanwhile, there’s several kids who say the last person they saw with Levi was Lucy. After that day, tensions are high for everyone. The fraternity is put on suspension for the alcohol and dangerous environment, so they all have to move out of the frat house.

“The one that turned me against Levi, Eliza against me. I’m staring at the picture that was stolen from her bedroom. These last nine months and the little crumbs Lucy has dropped like she was trying to get me to follow them all along. Like she was daring me to put it together, figure it out. It was Lucy out there, observing quietly.”

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham

Margot has started to feel more and more like Lucy is hiding something, or everything, from them. She sneaks into Lucys’ room one day and finds a photo of herself. A photo of Margot, Eliza, and Eliza’s parents. That was in Eliza’s room for years, but went missing their senior year. At the time, Margot had insisted to Eliza that Levi must’ve broken into the house and stolen the picture, but now she knows it was Lucy. She just doesn’t know why.

“Her father, Mr. Jefferson, whose name is still burned onto my laptop screen. Mr. Jefferson, the one who owns Lucy’s house in Fairfield, North Carolina.”

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham

After doing her own research for several days, Margot learns that Eliza’s father owns the home in Fairfield, NC that Lucy grew up in. From there, it’s easy for Margot to put the other pieces together, and determine that Lucy is Mr. Jefferson’s daughter. She’s older than Eliza, and was kept a secret from Mrs. Jefferson and Eliza. But Eliza had found the envelope of cash and had most likely put everything together.

As Margot is realizing just how many lies Lucy has been telling them, Lucy comes home and demands that all four roommates sit down for a talk. She gets Margot to admit she’s figured out Lucy’s secrets, and at that point, Lucy takes Margot outside to the shed to have a more private conversation.

“‘I saw it happen,’ she says to me now, reading my mind as I remember the way I walked into that building, the party already dying by the time I arrived.”

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham

Lucy admits that she was the one stalking Eliza, not Levi. She had learned that she had a half-sister, and was obsessed with learning about her and her dream life. Lucy was at the party when Eliza died. She then tells Margot that she knows who killed Eliza. And Margot admits to what really happened that night.

“I turned around just in time to see her stumble, eyes wet and wide as she reached out her hand like she was asking me to take it—but I didn’t. The flutter of her dress and the wind in her hair making it seem, for a second, like she might have been flying.”

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham

Margot was the one to kill Eliza. She came to the party to save Eliza, like she always did, and bring her home. But Eliza was sick of Margot doing exactly that and refused to leave with her. There was an altercation and at one point, Margot pushed Eliza and she fell down the staircase. Margot had immediately left and never admitted to being at the party. What she didn’t know is that Lucy was also at the party, and had seen the whole thing happen.

After the huge reveal, Margot asks more and more questions and Lucy gives her answers which seem to match with what Margot has learned about her. Then Lucy starts talking about how proud she was of Margot for killing Eliza, and that Eliza had it coming. She then asks Margot to admit she killed Levi, which Margot vehemently denies. As they argue back and forth, Lucy suddenly starts bleeding out.

“‘I thought it was Trevor,’ Nicole says, her eyes wet with tears as her lower lip shakes. Those thin little arms snaked around her waist like she’s still trying to keep the pain inside. ‘It was so dark, and he was wearing Trevor’s shirt.’”

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham

Sloane and Nicole appear behind Lucy as she slowly dies. Sloane had stabbed her with a kitchen knife. Nicole confesses that she killed Levi, but she thought he was Trevor. She had been dating Trevor for over a year, and he’d always treated her horribly. But at the Halloween party this year, he’d assaulted and raped her, and Nicole had broke. Sloane was convinced Lucy was going to figure it out and tell the police, so she killed Lucy to protect Nicole.

“‘Are you kidding me?’ Sloane snaps back. ‘She hurt all of us. Every single one of us.’”

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham

Margot immediately panics and the three girls begin debating what to do. The shed where Lucy is currently laying dead is often used by the boys to bleed and dry deer carcasses, so they’re not worried about the blood evidence. They know they don’t want to move the body too far and get any attention. Margot suggests “The Cave,” a hidden cellar underneath their house. Because the boys have moved out, the girls only have one more week at the house, and it’s the middle of winter, so they’re convinced it’ll be a safe enough spot.

“‘Yeah,’ I say, chewing over that second sentence: One student missing and another one dead. ‘Guess they just want to keep us feeling normal.’”

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham

After three days of no contact from Lucy, her boss reports her missing. Then Detective Frank comes to talk to the girls, who insist that Lucy just takes off some times, and they didn’t think anything was strange. They’ve all called and texted her several times, but (obviously) never heard back from her. So while they pack up their house with their dead roommate underneath them, they have to act like she’s only missing.

“‘Nothing showed up because there is no Lucy Sharpe enrolled at Rutledge. Lucy Sharpe doesn’t exist. Can you imagine the dean admitting that a random person spent an entire year shacking up in their dorm and nobody knew about it? She kept a shower caddy in the bathroom, for Christ’s sake.’”

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham

The final reveals about Lucy come out after her murder. Sloane and Nicole had also been poking around, and had learned that Lucy was never a student at Rutledge. She had approached them freshman year and asked if she could occasionally crash on their couch because she hated her roommate. They had agreed, and didn’t really think anything of it. As their sophomore year started, they both realized that it seemed like Lucy never went to class, and eventually Sloane used her job at the registrar to look her up. She couldn’t find any record of Lucy ever being a student. The girls conclude that Lucy must’ve followed Margot to Rutledge, and that the last two years have been some creepy obsession transference since Eliza’s death.

“‘They’ll just think we’re naïve,’ I say, walking over to her now and rubbing her shoulders. ‘That our only crime is being too innocent to see her for who she really is.’ ‘That we’re just girls,’ Sloane adds, her eyes distant and detached. “Just a couple of harmless little girls.’

Only If You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham

The girls had rehearsed their statements and facts over and over before the detectives ever talked to them. They’re also confident that all the information they’ll discover about Lucy will convince the police she killed Levi and skipped town. So the girls decide to continue living life like nothing is wrong. All three of them have now killed someone that the other two know about, so they’ll be bonded together forever.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and think it hits all the standard thriller criteria. It was exciting, twisty, and had exceptionally well-written teenage characters. I’d recommend this to anyone looking for an academic thriller that doesn’t feel stuffy or pretentious!