One of the things I love the most about YA thrillers is their unpredictability, but there are a handful of ingredients people expect when they pick one up. A clear and present threat, teen characters driven into conflict, twists and turns, an element of danger, a quick pace, and lots of action, to name a few. But every once in a while it’s so much fun to take those expected ingredients and thrust them into high speed (sometimes literally.)
Being chased by a stalker in the street is already nightmare fuel, but what if that chase happened on the highway? Drop a murder in the middle of a transatlantic flight and you’re sure to raise someone’s blod pressure. Discovering a dead body anywhere is a worst case scenario, but finding that dead body in the middle of the ocean on a yacht trip is sure to ruin everyone’s day. Whether it’s suspicion at sea, murder at 45,000 feet, or threats at ninety miles per hour, a thriller in motion adds an extra punch—and a slew of complications—to a storyline. Not only in ramping up the danger element, but often in the forced isolation that comes with the setting itself.
My next YA thriller, No Place Left to Hide is no exception. When high-achieving Brooke Goodwin agrees to go to a party at the coast to celebrate her admittance to Yale, she’s oblivious to the danger she’s about to be in. On the hour drive home, an old Bronco starts following Brooke and her best friend on the rural, dangerous highway. Late at night, with no service, the aggressive driver tails them at increasingly higher speeds, flashing their brights, until a blocked call comes through the Bluetooth that makes it clear this isn’t simple road rage. Brooke is given a choice: Confess the truth about what really happened at the party she threw in September… or die. Except, Brooke has no idea what they’re talking about. What happened at that party was a horrible accident, and Brooke wasn’t even on the premises when “the incident” happened. If she confesses, she loses everything she’s ever worked for. If she doesn’t, they might never make it home. Who doesn’t love a revenge plot full of mean girls, secrets, and betrayal—all unraveling at ninety miles an hour?
While you’re waiting for Brooke to make her entrance on January 7th, I’ve compiled a few other high-intensity titles on the go for you to check out. Whether by car, boat, or plane, these thrillers will keep you turning the pages to get to your destination as quickly as possible.
Natalie Richards, Five Total Strangers
This one technically ticks off two different modes of transportation! When a teen trying to get home for the holidays finds herself stranded when her last flight is cancelled due to a snowstorm, she accepts an invitation from a group of friends from her flight who are renting a car to drive the last leg of their journey. But unbeknownst to her, the “friends” are actually all strangers who met that day, they’re about to get stuck driving through the same storm that grounded their flight, and one of the strangers is more familiar with our main character than she knows. I devoured this book in one sitting. It’s part car chase, part survival story, with a dash of stalking that leads to an epic ending I still think about. It’s the perfect glimpse at how an otherwise innocuous situation can take a turn at the drop of a hat—or, dare I say, the turn of a key.
Kristin Cast & Pintip Dunn, Seasick
What could possibly go wrong when you put a bunch of recent high school graduates on a yacht headed for Bermuda? Turns out, quite a bit. When two former best friends are inducted into a secret society of their high school’s top grads, and they’re invited on a celebratory yacht trip, their futures are looking pretty bright… until one of their classmates turns up dead and they realize they’re trapped at sea with the murderer. Someone determined to keep their involvement in a possible admission cheating scandal under wraps. This book has it all, ex-friends, teens behaving badly, juicy secrets, and a budding journalist intent on exposing the truth about both the scandal and the murders, surrounded by an almost claustrophobic sense of isolation at sea.
Keely Parrack, 10 Hours to Go
You know what makes a tense drive even worse? A wildfire. When a teen’s post-graduation train ride home to California is disrupted by an incoming wildfire, her mom arranges a ride for her. The driver? Her former friend that she hasn’t spoken to in years, and she’s not alone. Also in the car is the girl our MC got expelled from school four years ago. It’s the ride from hell, but she’s out of options to get home and reluctantly gets in the car. As tensions between the three girls rise, the situation outside gets more dire. The smoke gets worse, the wildfires close in, and soon a decision to take a detour traps them all in the midst of the fire with no obvious way out. The frenemies are forced to put aside their drama and work together to find a way out, before it’s too late. What’s a great way to amp up the tension of frenemies with revenge on their mind? Trapping them in a car in the middle of a fire that could very well kill them all.
Holly Jackson, Five Survive
You want to talk about claustrophobia with a dangerous twist, how about a RV trip gone bad… due to a sniper? A spring break trip goes very, very wrong in this one, when a group of friends make a few wrong turns and wind up stranded in the middle of nowhere when their RV breaks down. And if that’s not bad enough, they’re soon being shot at, and nobody has service enough to call for help. Over the next eight hours they’re repeatedly targeted by the sniper and have to wade through secrets and suspicion to figure out which of them is the intended target. With no service, four shot out tires, a leaking gas tank, and absolutely nobody around to help them, this is the perfect isolation thriller to get you out of a reading slump.
Kellie M. Parker, Thin Air
What’s more terrifying than murder in the skies? When a teen is selected to compete abroad for a cash prize that’ll pave the way for her to attend the college of her choice, it seems like a dream come true. But when she and the other high-achieving students competing for the scholarship board a private plane to Paris, it soon becomes apparent that one of them will stop at nothing to win the contest—even if that means murdering the competition. As bodies pile up and secrets are revealed, they’ll have to figure out which of them is behind this before the futures they’ve all been fighting for disappear into thin air. Kellie’s “locked room” thriller left me with big Murder on the Orient Express feels. This high altitude, high speed setting is guaranteed to keep you turning the pages… and maybe thinking twice about your next flight.
By Natasha Preston, The Dare
The Dare gives off some serious I Know What You Did Last Summer vibes. This one is a twisted story about senior shenanigans gone wrong. In this town, seniors’ dares are taken very seriously and the ones dished out by the richest kids in school are also often illegal. The choice is simple— either do the dare, or your worst secrets will be revealed. When a teen and her friends are forced to accept their dare— to drive a dangerous road in the middle of the night with no headlights— it leads not only to a death, but to a coverup that threatens friendships, loyalties, and lives as the teens fight to conceal the truth of what happened in that car. This book is told at a blistering pace, with as many twists and turns in the plot as there are on this road that made them killers.
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