The Spite Game

One night in 2008, high school senior Ava, the narrator of this entertaining if flawed thriller from Australian author Snoekstra (Little Secrets), wakes up in her bedroom in a Melbourne suburb to find a man standing over her bed with a baseball bat. The intruder leaves without harming her, but the police fail to apprehend him. The incident fundamentally changes Ava: “Something wrong had happened, and no one even seemed to even expect for it to be put right except me.” In the aftermath, whenever Ava witnesses an injustice, she believes if she doesn’t make things right, no one will. When Ava sees a teacher make a pass at Melissa Moore, one of her classmates, she exposes him. She and Mel become instant friends, or so it seems. But soon Mel and her spiteful group of friends violate Ava’s trust and bully her maliciously. In the years that follow, desperate to feel a sense of peace again, Ava stalks each of them, obsessed with enacting her own form of justice. Some unbelievable moments won’t stop readers from turning the pages. Agent: MacKenzie Fraser-Bub, Fraser-Bub Literary. (Oct.)