e-ALC, 08:20:01
Narrated by: Dédé Davi
Release Date: January 13, 2026
Published by: Macmillan Audio
Read from: January 7-8, 2026
Stand-alone
Source: Libro FM (I received this ALC free from the publisher and Libro FM. This did nothing to influence my review!)
Content Warning: Death, Murder, Racism, Sexual Assault, Rape, Death of a Parent, Vomit, Drug Use, Injury/Injury Detail
For Readers Interested In: Contemporary, Sparkly Covers, Mystery, Set Outside the US, Thriller, YAA Good Girl’s Guide to Murder meets Ace of Spades in this YA thriller where a girl has to navigate the cutthroat world of academia to uncover the truth behind her best friend’s death.
Love, Lies, Legacy…High-achieving state-school pupil Eva has one dream – reading English at Oxford. If she gets in, not only will she receive a world-class education at an elite university, but she will be fulfilling the dreams of her mother and gain some independence from her father, the overprotective Inspector Dawkins.
At the same school, Eva’s best-friend George is also hoping to go to Oxford. The attraction between him and Eva is undeniable, but they’ve agreed to put any romance on hold until their places at Oxford are secured. Eva cannot be distracted from her goal – although when they are both invited for interview week, their future together feels oh-so close.
Until George shows up dead.
The police rule his death an accident, but the behaviour of some of the other interview candidates has Eva suspecting foul play. When a shocking secret about George is revealed, Eva finds suspicion falling on her. What was meant to be one of the most important weeks of her life is fast turning into a nightmare.
All eyes are now on Eva, including the anonymous posters behind OxSlay, a gossipy social media forum exclusively for Oxford students. But amongst the conspiracy theories, lurk hidden clues. Could they help Eva clear her name – and catch the killer?
*MY THOUGHTS*
I’m not sure I liked this? LOL I know that sounds weird, but I’m serious. I have a hard time with dark academia, and this one was no different. I guess I just don’t understand how all this can be going on and these people still stay there. I would take myself out of school so fast lol
Ok so part of this is about a secret society that this school has. And right away that has me saying Naw. I just cannot fathom all these people dying around me and I’m still enrolled in the school. Absolutely not. And especially not my best friend. I don’t understand how she was able to do this. But then things started pointing toward her and that made me nope out even more. Overall, the whole mystery was ok, but it didn’t completely grab me. I was just reading it, I didn’t feel completely in the story if that makes sense.
This also felt really basic. I feel like I’ve read so many of these types of books. It just didn’t stand out to me. But that’s an overall problem with Dark Academia. They all read the same. Add in the social media aspect and it like checks every box. The problem was, it wasn’t good enough when compared to all those other ones. So yeah, I finished it, but it wasn’t anything that I’d be telling people about later. Besides the ending. I liked how they were able to catch the person. If you know me you know it’s because I have a thing for stories that involve SPOILER social media. END SPOILER I won’t say anything more than that lol
The ending was actually crazy tho. It seemed like everything was coming out of nowhere. It just went from like 0 to 60 so fast. All the pieces from years ago and the current mystery started clicking together and it just got to be too much so fast. And it wasn’t bad, it just went really fast. I don’t know why they couldn’t make the whole book that way. And the person whodunit wasn’t easy to guess. But only because of a certain reason that I despise but can’t say because of spoilers. BUT I did like the person who was caught and I DID like the way the caught them, so I won’t say it was all bad. There was a lot of good here too.
This wasn’t the best for me, but I can appreciate that it was still good. Was it my favorite? No. But still interesting and still good. Definitely a mystery worth reading!
Overall, I give this
