Holly Jackson introduces her new YA thriller, Five Survive

It has been a wild journey, and you have my eternal gratitude for taking such good care of our Pip.

Holly Jackson

Last year, I wrote a standalone thriller for the first time… again. And what I mean by that confusing statement is that throughout the entire publication process and even months after, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was supposed to be a standalone thriller. I had ideas for other mysteries Pip might get to solve, but I never thought I would be allowed to write them, to continue Pip’s story. And here I am now, looking back at a complete (and rather chunky) trilogy.

I am more shocked than anyone at the success the series has gone on to achieve, and I would like to take a moment to thank booksellers all over the world for the phenomenal support you have shown this series: from displays and endless enthusiasm, to making A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder an international bestseller, to placing the books on those brilliant ‘TikTok made me do it’ tables. It has been a wild journey, and you have my eternal gratitude for taking such good care of our Pip.

That is why, when it came to writing my first book Post-Pip, the blank page was more intimidating and the blinking cursor loomed even larger. This was going to be my first standalone – I promise this time – and I wanted it to have the same components readers loved about AGGGTM but, at the same time, to feel completely different. So it is my pleasure (and terror) to introduce you to Five Survive. Five Survive begins at 10:00 p.m. It follows a group of six friends as they travel across the states in an RV for Spring Break. But when one of their tires blows out on a remote, dirt road, the group soon realize there is a sniper out there in the dark, shooting at them. They are trapped. A game of cat-and-mouse plays out across eight hours as the group desperately tries to escape, and to figure out which one of them is the target. Buried secrets are forced to light in the cramped, claustrophobic setting of the RV, and tensions within the group will reach deadly levels. Not all of them will survive the night. Cue the DUN-DUN-DUUUUUUN sound effect…

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