At the start of this tempestuous, emotionally wrenching tale of courage, betrayal, guilt, and just maybe forgiveness from bestseller Miranda (The Last to Vanish), Cassidy Bent is reluctantly preparing for an annual ritual: the weeklong reunion at a secluded beach house on North Carolina's Outer Banks of what were initially nine survivors of a horrific accident a decade earlier when they were high school seniors and a dozen students and teachers died after the two vans carrying them home in rain-lashed darkness from a service trip in Tennessee plunged into a river. The former classmates are about the last people any of them want to see at this point--as well as the only ones who share the secrets of what they did to walk out of the woods alive. And now their number has shrunk to seven after the apparent death by suicide of a onetime close friend of Cassidy, the second such death. The suspense and danger escalate as the narrative alternates between the present and the night of the tragedy, even if the final shocker may strike some readers as contrived. Though not among Miranda's best, this remains an evocative excursion into darkness. Agent: Jennifer Joel, ICM Partners. (Apr.)

It would be hard to concoct a more promisingly sinister setting than a large oceanfront beach house with a maze-like interior and perilous outside balconies, surrounded by dunes and ocean on one of the Outer Banks islands off North Carolina. The setting affords plenty of hiding places for predators and plenty of opportunities for the weather itself to turn villainous. Miranda (The Last to Vanish, 2022) uses this setting to maximum effect, both as a plot device and as a way to inject steady droplets of terror into the narrative. The seven people gathered at the beach house, former high-school classmates, have come here for a week every year for 10 years. Is it to support each other emotionally on the anniversary of the tragedy that claimed the lives of 10 of their classmates and 2 teachers, or to make sure no one in the group reveals what really happened? A double narrative holds both present and past danger. The first narrative recounts what's happening in the present. The second dips into the minds of the survivors during the grueling hours of the tragic event itself. Both strands provide creepy hints as to what's troubling the survivors and why they might not all survive this particular reunion. Masterfully suspenseful.