The need to belong and to be a part of something--a club, a family, a friendship--is a strong desire, certainly for college student Margot in Only If You're Lucky, the intense third novel from Stacy Willingham (All the Dangerous Things).
Margot planned to room with her best friend, Eliza, at South Carolina's Rutledge College, which would allow them to deepen their bond. But just a few weeks after high school graduation, Eliza mysteriously dies. Margot spends a lonely freshman year rooming with a nice, but dull, roommate, until popular Lucy suddenly invites Margot to share an historic off-campus house with her and two other friends. Lucy appears to be the campus It Girl--poised, confident, a bit intimidating, dangerous. But her true nature is reflected in the unkempt house that desperately needs repairs, debris piling up. Margot willingly succumbs to Lucy's manipulation, becoming less inhibited and putting aside her grief over Eliza. But when Lucy disappears following the murder of Levi Butler, a pledge to the fraternity next door who was also Eliza's boyfriend and the last person to see her alive, Margot must face a horrible possibility--that Lucy may be a killer.
The friends' dynamic, especially what Lucy is willing to do for each of her housemates, imbues the plot with tension. Only If You're Lucky delivers an outstanding study of Margot, whose desperate craving for friendship is potent. It's understandable how she falls under Lucy's spell, whose "eyes seem to pierce you so deep, leaving behind microscopic little puncture wounds." Each character's secrets are slowly doled out for added suspense. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer