We Won’t All Survive

This intense, uneven mystery by Marshall (The Narrow) centers eight young adults struggling to escape a desert ghost town. Eighteen-year-old Mercy Gray is recruited by billionaire tech magnate–turned–TV host Damien Dare to compete in a survivalist reality show that follows strangers stranded in defunct mining town Landry’s Gap. If the contestants can withstand six weeks in the town’s conditions—modified to test their tenacity, ingenuity, and physical limits—they’ll each win $100,000. The participants quickly learn that each of them has experienced a traumatic event: Mercy’s quick action during a mall shooting a year ago, for example, saved multiple lives but left her with a bullet fragment in her back and mounting medical debt. Panic sets in when, upon the group’s arrival at Landry’s Gap, no one is there to meet them. Then the gate to the 12-foot, razor wire–topped chain-link fence that surrounds the town slams closed, trapping them inside; things take an even more frightening turn when one of the group is found dead, and all signs point to murder. High-adrenaline action sequences feel somewhat deflated by abrupt transitions and disjointed plotting, but readers will rally behind courageous, vulnerable Mercy and her steadfast first-person narration. The characters are intersectionally diverse. Ages 14–up. (July)