Through Our Teeth

A teen investigating her friend’s suspicious death finds herself in over her head in this tense locked-room mystery by Harris (This Town Is on Fire). High school senior Liv is left reeling after her best friend Hope purportedly dies by suicide. But Liv, haunted by photos of Hope’s bruised face—which Hope posted online before her death—is certain that Hope’s boyfriend Brendan is somehow involved. Enlisting her former friends Kizzy and Sherie, Liv lures Brendan to a vacant high-tech mansion to coax a confession out of him. Her plan goes awry following the arrival of a pair of Brendan’s friends, and then a storm knocks the power out, trapping the teens in the malfunctioning smart house. As tension runs high, accusations fly about what happened to Hope. And things go from bad to worse when one of the group is mysteriously killed. Flashback chapters detail events prior to Hope’s death, further highlighting the narrative’s centering of mental health issues and the stigma they can carry, particularly within the protagonist’s Black Virginia community. It’s an edge-of-the-seat thriller narrated in a magnetic first-person POV by Liv, whose at times contradictory observations continually raise the stakes. Ages 14–up. Agent: Natalie Lakosil, Looking Glass Literary. (Sept.)