Thin Air

by Kellie M. Parker

Overview

Eight hours. Twelve contestants. A flight none of them might survive. A flight to Paris full of teenagers seeking opportunity turns deadly in this suspenseful, locked-door YA thriller. Perfect for fans of Diana Urban, Karen McManus, and Jessica Goodman.

Seventeen-year-old boarding school student Emily Walters is selected for an opportunity of a lifetime—she’ll compete abroad for a cash prize that will cover not only tuition to the college of her choice, but will lift her mother and her out of poverty.

But almost from the moment she and 11 other contestants board a private jet to Europe, Emily realizes somebody is willing to do anything to win. Between keeping an eye on her best friend’s flirty boyfriend and hiding her own dark secrets, she’s not sure how she’ll survive the contest, much less the flight. Especially when people start dying…

As loyalties shift and secrets are revealed, Emily must figure out who to trust, and who’s trying to kill them all, before she becomes the next victim.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593526019
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	10/08/2024
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	12 Years

About the Author

Kellie M. Parker is an award-winning writer of YA fantasy and thrillers. She has college degrees in biology and nautical archaeology, but she’s always found her sense of adventure most satisfied by a great story. When not writing, Kellie can be found teaching her four children, camping, baking, and gardening. She lives with her family in west Michigan.

Read an Excerpt

: : :  1 : : :
MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY
June 22, 12:06 a.m. CDT, seven hours after takeoff
The cabin is deathly silent except for the low, constant thrum of the airplane’s engines beneath the wings. Like a wasp buzzing in my ear, the sound grates against my tattered nerves, unsettling me almost as much as everything that’s happened since the flight attendants distributed those horrible letters. Almost, but not quite.
Feet sinking into the carpet, I wrap my trembling fingers around the heavy glass paperweight and pluck it noiselessly off the desk. The surface is burled walnut—­my dad used to have a desk like this in his home office—­just a bit nicer than a plastic tray table. Normally, that kind of luxury would seem out of place at a cruising altitude of forty-­two thousand feet, except this isn’t a normal transatlantic flight—­not by a mile.
A curtain of hair escapes from behind my ear and falls across one cheek, obscuring my peripheral vision. My heart lurches as I tuck the strands back, the brief blind spot making my pulse race. I clutch the makeshift weapon at my side. Track lighting along the floor and dimmed lighting overhead create a soft yellow glow in the otherwise dark space. It would be cozy if not for the bodies tucked away in an upstairs compartment.
I’d never seen a dead body before this trip. Maybe because I’ve been at boarding school and had to miss relatives’ funerals. Or maybe my mom’s fractured relationships mean she and I don’t get invited.
You always hear about how stiff and cold and waxy a corpse is, but nobody talks about those first moments when the skin is still warm and it looks like all you’d have to do is give the person a good shake and they’d blink. It’s the eyes that give it away—­the way they glass over and go hollow. Nobody’s in there anymore.
My throat closes up at the thought, but I force myself to swallow. Nothing can be done to help the ones we’ve already lost, but I can save the rest of us. Maybe.
The sense of betrayal stings deeper than that sea nettle that wrapped around my leg last summer on Cape Cod. My grip on the paperweight falters, and I tighten my fingers before it can drop to the floor with a telltale thunk. The evidence is clear, and no matter how I feel, I have to do this for the rest of us. Maybe this is my punishment, my moment of redemption, in which I finally pay the price for my mistakes.
Maybe that’s why the killer chose me to frame. I know all about betrayal.
Tears sting my eyes. I swipe them away as I pass through the sliding doorway and into the next dimly lit space. Plush chairs and computer workstations rise like black ghosts from the floor, ready to swallow anyone looking for a place to hide.
The glass paperweight is smooth beneath my fingertips, the mass of it satisfyingly heavy in my palm. Weapons aren’t exactly easy to come by on airplanes, even private ones. The thought of hitting anyone on the head with this thing makes my stomach churn, but my intention isn’t to kill—­only to incapacitate.
I make it out of the workstation compartment alive and tiptoe past the door to the plane’s galley and the storage space on the other side of the corridor. Images from the past hours flit through my mind, stuttering my steps and threatening my sense of purpose: Lily’s red hair draped against dull skin, her breathing too shallow. The bruises around her throat.
No, I can’t think about that now. Instead, I focus on her last words before she slipped into unconsciousness: We were wrong.
I pause at the entrance to the dining room. Someone has cracked open a few of the plane’s window shades, letting in narrow streaks of golden-­hued early morning light. The large table, long since cleared from last night’s dinner, gleams like a dark lake in the middle of the room. Probably the flight attendants would be setting it for breakfast now—­if they weren’t unconscious in one of the staff rooms upstairs.
A shadowy figure leaning against the far bulkhead glances at me as I enter. He straightens. “Hey,” he whispers. “Where are the others?”
How can he ask that question? Doesn’t he figure I found the bodies already?
I point my thumb over my shoulder, swallowing a hard lump in my throat, ignoring the pounding in my chest.
Like the rest of the plane, this room is ridiculously luxurious, but it isn’t huge. It’ll only take a few seconds to reach him. And then . . . 
My fingers tighten on the paperweight. Now isn’t the time to second-­guess.

Editorial Reviews

Stow your tray tables and adjust your seat backs. This is no ordinary murder mystery. Thin Air takes off at the speed of sound, dropping you immediately into the action at 30,000 feet. You’ll need an oxygen mask of your own as the twists leave you gasping and every page-turn propels you closer to amending you’ll never see coming. A fast-paced, claustrophobic thrill ride of a story that’s perfect for reading on vacation...unless, of course, you’re flying there.”—Ginny Myers Sain, New York Times bestselling author of Dark and Shallow Lies

“Kellie M. Parker’s Thin Air is an unputdownable thrill ride that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go until the very end. It kept me up long past my bedtime—readers be warned thatyou won’t want to put this one down.”—Stacy Stokes, author of Remember Me Gone

“Emily’s first-person narration establishes her as a sympathetic and flawed protagonist. The initial chapter quickly sets the taut line of tension that’s maintained throughout, with each chapter opening with a time stamp marking the plane’s progress across the Atlantic. The fast pace will keep readers engaged, particularly fans of locked-room mysteries.”—Kirkus Reviews

"The read is truly original, making themost of its inescapable airplane setting. Filled with twists and dread, this novel will thrill thosecurious about the dark side of human nature and what it means to be a survivor."—Booklist

"Emily’s empathetic first-personnarration, rendered in assured prose, is a steadfast vehicle that drives readers from one suspenseful, iffamiliar, scare to the next. There are no snakes on this plane, but the dangers are real in this ticking-clock thriller by Parker."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

09/04/2023

A dozen high schoolers are traveling to Paris aboard a private plane when, a few hours into the flight, teens begin turning up dead. The passengers are all students handpicked from elite schools across the country, each participating in an academic competition for a four-year, all-expenses-paid scholarship to an Ivy League college and a postgraduate mentorship. This would be life-changing for Emily Walters, who attends a boarding school in Connecticut on a needs-based scholarship; since her father stopped paying child support, Emily lives in the family Subaru with her unemployed mother when she’s not at school. On the plane, Taylor, a student from Boston, is targeted via her nut allergy; she’s saved with an EpiPen, but Paige from North Carolina isn’t so lucky. It seems that someone is taking out the scholarship competitors one by one. And while Emily is desperate to obtain the prize, she must decide whether winning this deadly game is worth sacrificing everyone on board. Emily’s empathetic first-person narration, rendered in assured prose, is a steadfast vehicle that drives readers from one suspenseful, if familiar, scare to the next. There are no snakes on this plane, but the dangers are real in this ticking-clock thriller by Parker. The cast is racially diverse. Ages 12–up. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

2023-08-11
A group of teens on a private jet are slowly picked off by a mysterious killer who seems to know all their secrets.

Emily has just completed her junior year at an exclusive boarding school where she’s on a need-based scholarship. Among other things, she’s been hiding the fact that her mother blew their savings on an MLM scheme and is living in her car following the loss of their house. Fortunately, Emily managed to get a scholarship from a charitable foundation that will allow her to escape to Paris for two weeks over the summer. The unusual program takes 12 finalists from hundreds of boarding school applicants and pits them against one another as they compete in challenges related to “character, intelligence, leadership skills, teamwork, and talent.” The kicker? It all begins as soon as they’re in the air. Emily’s first-person narration of this elaborate setup establishes her as a sympathetic and flawed protagonist. The initial chapter is a quick, interest-piquing vignette set seven hours into the chaotic flight, and it quickly sets the taut line of tension that’s maintained throughout, with each chapter opening with a time stamp marking the plane’s progress across the Atlantic. The fast pace will keep readers engaged, particularly fans of locked-room mysteries, although the romantic subplot feels a bit formulaic. Emily is cued white; secondary characters show some racial diversity.

A fun page-turner. (Thriller. 13-18)

Kirkus Reviews