The Meadowbrook Murders

Goodman (The Legacies) shocks in the opening sequence of this gruesome murder mystery in which 17-year-old Amy Alterman, a senior at upper-class Connecticut boarding school Meadowbrook Academy, awakens to find her roommate, Sarah Oliver, and Sarah’s boyfriend, Ryan Pelham, blood-soaked and dead in Sarah’s bed. The scene then shifts to school newspaper editor Elizabeth Charles, who’s writing in her office when she learns of Sarah and Ryan’s deaths. The mystery of what happened to the teens unfolds via Amy and Liz’s alternating POVs, during which Amy, devastated by a fight she and Sarah had the night before Sarah’s death, struggles to accept that her best friend is gone; and Liz, following her reportorial instincts, begins investigating, hoping to write an article worthy of landing a college scholarship. As Liz unearths new information, Amy—the primary suspect—strives to prove her innocence, despite her own misgivings surrounding the suspicious disappearance of her own boyfriend, Joseph Stone. Liz’s inquiry and Goodman’s adroit examination surrounding the ethics of gathering evidence and disseminating news elevates the familiar posh boarding school mystery plot. Major characters cue as white. Ages 14–up. Agent: Alyssa Reuben, WME. (Feb.)