The Cousins

McManus (One of Us Is Lying) once again crafts a taut, multilayered mystery, this time focusing on the fallout of family estrangement on the next generation. When Mildred “Milly” Story-Takahashi is summoned to a dinner with her mother, she expects bad news, not a mysterious invitation to work at her wealthy maternal grandmother’s resort on Gull Cove Island. Milly and her cousins Jonah and Aubrey will be the first Storys to be welcomed back after a 24-year estrangement that their abruptly disinherited parents claim not to understand—one that began with a lawyer’s note stating “You know what you did.” Forced to spend the summer on Gull Cove Island, the cousins are startled to find both that they were not, after all, expected and that at least one party wants them gone. As the three piece together what happened to their family, they begin to reveal their own secrets as well. Narrating her thriller through multiple perspectives that encompass both generations of Storys, McManus weaves past and present to take readers on a well-paced, twisty ride that will hold readers rapt till the last page. Ages 14–up. [em]Agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio. (Dec.) [/em]