And Then There Were Four

by Nancy Werlin

Overview

Thrilling suspense from New York Times bestselling and Edgar award winner Nancy Werlin.

 

Five teens are students at Rockland Academy, and they're the only ones summoned to a meeting in an old building—when the roof caves in on them. They survive, but barely. It was a terrible accident. Or was it?

 

Saralinda: "I'm a huge burden to my mother."

Caleb: "I'm a monster."

Kenyon: "My grandfather hates me."

Antoine: "My mother has already tried to kill me twice."

Evangeline: "I'll be worth 40 million dollars on my birthday. Then, I fill out the papers to give it all to the Upper East Side Cat Society. Not a penny to my stepmother. Unless I die first—haha."

 

But their families can't have banded together to kill them all. That's crazy.

 

Then another "accident" happens. Now they are four, and in a desperate race to escape the trap that's squeezing shut around them.

REVIEWS

• "The trap is sprung. The hunt is on. Don't expect to sleep tonight. A stunning thriller told in two unforgettable voices." -Julie Berry, Printz Honor-winning author of The Passion of Dolssa
• "Unpredictable and emotional." -USA Today
• "A plot that left me breathless, and strong, memorable characters. Not many writers can do both. Nancy Werlin makes it look effortless. I could not put this book down." -Linda Sue Park, Newbery Award-winning author of A Long Walk to Water
• "Tense, vivid, lively, and heart-twisting—I could not catch my breath. What a very great pleasure this was to read. -Tamora Pierce, New York Times bestselling author of The Song of the Lioness quartet
• A gripping page-turner with a lot of twists and turns. Those fans of mystery looking for something different to read? Werlin's latest definitely stands out.      -RT Book Reviews
• Although the psychology of the kids—and their parents—is a huge part of the story, it's the nonstop action that sweeps readers along. People are on the run, bodies are piling up, and murder is in the air. Up until the last moment, it's not clear who is going to make it out alive. -Booklist

Product Details

BN ID:	2940165512629
Publisher:	Nancy Werlin
Publication date:	09/29/2021
Sold by:	Draft2Digital
Format:	eBook
File size:	577 KB

About the Author

Nancy Werlin is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of The Killer’s Cousin, Rules of Survival, Black Mirror, Impossible, and a host of other young adult novels. She lives in Massachusetts.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1: Caleb

It is your new nightly ritual, as automatic as showering or brushing your teeth or thinking about her. You feed innocent paper into the teeth of the shredder. Then you put the scraps on the floor. 
Whatever it is.

The paper shreds have never been disturbed yet, not once, which is surprising and interesting. You’re uncertain what to make of this. 

One thing is true. You are not a little boy anymore. You are seventeen, and you don’t believe in Mommy keeping you safe or in friends having your back or in anybody, including you, understanding the difference between good and evil. 

You do, however, believe in the indifference of humanity and the absolute inevitability of your own destruction.

You never asked to be what you are. Why you? At this point, you rarely bother to ask that question. Why is a child’s question, and there’s never a good answer, not from him, not for you. 

Because. That’s the answer. His answer, and now also yours. 

Because you are a monster. 

Because you are too damn fucking tired. 

One day soon, maybe tomorrow, you will stop fighting. You will go down. You will be done. 

For tonight, though, you shape the hand and cane again, working the confetti to represent her small, determined fingers. You haven’t bothered to learn her name, and you don’t plan to. She’s nothing to do with you.

But her world is a good place, you felt sure of that from the first time you saw her. You’re glad for her, that she lives there and not where you do. 

She’s alive in the world. It is enough for you.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "And Then There Were Four"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Nancy Werlin.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Young Readers Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

05/01/2017
Five teenagers at New York City’s prestigious Rockland Academy uncover a murder plot, and signs point to their parents as the killers. Drawing heavily on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and glossy dramas like Pretty Little Liars, Werlin (Extraordinary) bands her teens around tragedy rather than common interest. There’s Saralinda de la Flor, an outcast with diabetes and a club foot; Antoine Dubois, star soccer player and class president; Caleb Colchester, son of an eminent psychiatrist, who claims to have a Mr. Hyde–like dark side; Evangeline Song, the acerbic, beautiful brain; and Martha “Kenyon” McKenyon, the proudly queer transfer student with a tragic backstory. Gathering for a student leaders meeting in a rundown corner of the school, the gang narrowly escapes death when the roof caves in, and that’s just the beginning of a series of not-accidents aimed at knocking them off. The teens’ leap to determining that their parents may be responsible is a stretch, particularly given the ensemble cast, but Werlin creates palpable suspense as she alternates between Saralinda and Caleb’s points of view. Ages 14–up. Agent: Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Drawing heavily on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and glossy dramas like Pretty Little Liars . . . Werlin creates palpable suspense as she alternates between Saralinda and Caleb's points of view."—Publishers Weekly

"A compulsive read."--Booklist

"Fans of nonstop action will appreciate the breakneck pace."—Kirkus Reviews

"An entertaining ride . . . the narrative contrast gives an odd but satisfying tone to this thriller."—BCCB

"Werlin returns to her mystery/thriller roots for another psychological page-turner."—The Horn Book

"Teen will enjoy the fast-paced suspense."—School Library Connection

"A gripping page-turner with lots of twists and turns . . . Werlin's latest definitely stands out."—Romantic Times Book Reviews

From the Publisher

04/01/2017
Gr 8 Up—When Saralinda, Antoine, Evangeline, Kenyon, and Caleb barely escape from beneath the collapsed roof of a dilapidated Rockland Academy campus building, the teens are understandably shaken. But when one of the group is killed in a second accident not long after, the other four begin to think that someone wants them dead. Reluctant friendships start to form, along with a theory, but Saralinda is sure that theory is wrong—her mother would never agree to a plot to kill her. Readers learn about the various elements that complicate the group's chances of survival, including Saralinda's protective mother, club foot, and diabetes, as well as the "monster" that is Caleb's dissociative identity disorder and the famous father who diagnosed him. The chapters are short and distinct, shifting between Saralinda's stream-of-consciousness first-person narrative and Caleb's sound but fear-driven second-person perspective to drive the plot. A few aspects of the story line, such as Saralinda's naïveté and Caleb's distrust of himself, are a little heavy-handed, and both budding romances are a bit lacking in originality, but the characters are diverse, each with their own stake in the story, and focusing on the mystery of why someone wants them dead, rather than who, is an interesting twist. VERDICT A good choice for reluctant readers and fans of the author's previous work.—Maggie Mason Smith, Clemson University, SC

School Library Journal

Jorjeana Marie and Michael Crouch narrate the alternating points of view of two fearful teens. Marie conveys the trepidation of Saralinda, who copes with a club foot, diabetes, and an overprotective mother. Crouch portrays the deep-seated concerns of Caleb, whose father, a noted psychiatrist, has convinced him that he has “an internal evil twin” whose acts he doesn’t remember. Soon these teens and two of their friends have much more to fear—someone wants to kill them! Near the end of the audiobook, narrator James Lurie portrays Caleb’s cold father, and May Wuthrich reads the part of an interviewer who is horrified at the events that have befallen the teens. Nick Martorelli delivers the audiobook’s epilogue by the teens’ caring headmaster. The plot is both unbelievable and horrifying, but the narrators keep the book moving. S.W. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

JULY 2017 - AudioFile

Jorjeana Marie and Michael Crouch narrate the alternating points of view of two fearful teens. Marie conveys the trepidation of Saralinda, who copes with a club foot, diabetes, and an overprotective mother. Crouch portrays the deep-seated concerns of Caleb, whose father, a noted psychiatrist, has convinced him that he has “an internal evil twin” whose acts he doesn’t remember. Soon these teens and two of their friends have much more to fear—someone wants to kill them! Near the end of the audiobook, narrator James Lurie portrays Caleb’s cold father, and May Wuthrich reads the part of an interviewer who is horrified at the events that have befallen the teens. Nick Martorelli delivers the audiobook’s epilogue by the teens’ caring headmaster. The plot is both unbelievable and horrifying, but the narrators keep the book moving. S.W. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

JULY 2017 - AudioFile

2017-03-29
After a roof mysteriously collapses on five students from Rockland Academy, the teens realize their parents wants them dead. One teen is white, one is a brown-skinned Haitian-American, one is Korean-American, one is Latino, and one is "darkish." Two of them alternate narration as the group investigates the convoluted conspiracy, growing desperate after one member is murdered. Brown-skinned Saralinda, who juggles a club foot, diabetes, an overprotective mother, and a quirky cane named Georgia, narrates in flowery, frantic, run-on sentences that reveal her oddly self-deprecating wit as well as the anxiety engendered by her mother's constant supervision. Caleb, the Latino son of a famous psychiatrist, narrates in the second person, believing that an "internal evil twin" performs terrible deeds he can't remember. Their distinct voices and their conflicting feelings toward their parents (and each other) would pack quite an emotional punch were the narrative's focus on them a little sharper. The other characters' expository back stories are crowded with drama, but there's little room to develop their rather one-note personalities amid helicopter chases; exploding cars; escapes aided by convenient kind strangers; burgeoning straight and (hackneyed) lesbian romance; surprising weapons; elaborate ruses; and timely confessions. Filicide, still a somewhat taboo and weighty issue, feels reduced to another gimmick in the onslaught of over-the-top schemes. Fans of nonstop action will appreciate the breakneck pace, but those hoping for plumbing of character may grow fatigued. (Thriller. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews