The Bitter End

Eight students from elite Los Angeles high school Warner Prep and their counselor arrive at isolated Bear Point Lodge in the Colorado mountains for a device-free weekend as part of their Senior Excursion. With no other visitors and no staff on-site, they settle in for cross-country skiing, binge-drinking, and a strip version of the board game Oh, the Humanity. Chapters that alternate between the teens—but focus primarily on students Piper, Willa, and Delaney—include timestamps that differentiate present-day scenes from flashbacks that occur three years prior at a party in a Malibu mansion. On the mountaintop, it begins to snow, forcing the group to bunker down. But when one of their classmates turns up dead and the power goes out, taking the heat along with it, the Warner Prep teens become embroiled in an epic fight for survival against the elements as well as a killer at-large. Donne (Pretty Dead Queens) injects ample mystery into the narrative via the wealth of shifting perspectives and timelines, culminating in an intentionally disorienting whodunit. Readers will rejoice in feeling part of the characters’ investigative team in this entertaining thriller that ticks all the right boxes. Piper, Willa, and Delaney read as white. Ages 14–up. Agent: Elana Roth Parker, Laura Dail Literary. (Oct.)