Pulsing with tense flashbacks,complex relationships of friendship and romance, jolting revelations, and the fate of a vicious bully, this layered and haunting thriller from Gunhus (author of The Torment Of Rachel Ames) smartly plumbs past and present and guilt and justice. Twenty years after the death of fifteen-year-old Wyatt Bucks rocked the river town of Chambers, a group of now-adult friends who believed that Bucks “deserved what he got and got what he deserved” face a reluctant "twisted reunion,” as an anonymous text draws them all back together to a cabin from their childhood. Mitch Ansel, Dan Coates, Kelly-Ann Baldwin, Lauren Renner, and Rick Wilson all know what really happened to Wyatt Bucks on that bridge when they were 13 because they are the responsible parties. After making a pact to keep the secret—and to always meet up if one of them decided to tell the truth—they come together to face the possibility that one of them has decided it's time to come clean. Or that’s what they think.Often chilling, as Bucks's ghost plagues the protagonists’ dreams and possibly their waking hours, too, Blood Lasts Forever is a non-stop, heart-pounding mystery that develops at a breakneck speed even as it takes trauma seriously. Teasing out the truth of what went down between the “Fab Five” and Wyatt Bucks in the days leading up to his death, Gunhus juxtaposes adolescent reasoning and growing pains with the responsibilities and moral values that the cast matured into as adults.
Gunhus does an excellent job of contrasting victims and villains and blurring the lines of which characters truly fit those roles. Eager to put the past behind them, yet still grappling with the trauma of what they have done, the five all have reason to feel distrustful—not only of each other, but also of the possibility that someone else may know their secret. Morally gray characters and thoughtful coming-of-age drama power this strong, genre-blending thriller.
Takeaway: Tense, haunted thriller of five friends reunited 20 years after a shocking death.
Comparable Titles: Joshilyn Jackson’s Never Have I Ever, Karen M. McManus’s One of Us is Lying.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
