Optioned for television by Bruna Papandrea's Made Up Stories (e.g., Big Little Lies), this white knuckler from a Glimmer Train and AWP Intro Award finalist features teenage Charlie, still haunted by her mother's disappearance when she was seven. Now a secret society at her elite New England school wants her to join their fun, but doing so entails a creepy, semester-long scavenger hunt that could wreck her life. YA crossover potential.

Charlie Calloway comes from a well-to-do family with a mysterious past. Her mother vanished when Charlie was seven, and while the details are unclear, everyone—including Charlie's father—assumes Grace simply picked up and left, though Charlie has trouble believing her mother would abandon her. Ten years later, 17-year-old Charlie receives an invitation to join the A's, an exclusive and secretive club made up of popular students from her New England private school. To join this club, however, she must pass a series of questionable tests that challenge her moral compass, though Charlie's budding interest in Dalton, a club member with an unsavory reputation, keeps her motivated to succeed. Along the way, Charlie continues to hunt for answers surrounding her mother's disappearance, and while she starts to discover more about herself in the process, she stumbles upon dark secrets that hit close to home. VERDICT A worthy, page-turning debut that will keep readers guessing until the end. Readers of Liane Moriarty and psychological thrillers will not want to put this down.—David Miller, Farmville P.L., NC

Did Grace Fairchild simply walk away from her Cinderella life as the wife of a blueblood New York real estate billionaire—as suggested by bank surveillance footage showing her cleaning out the couple's safe deposit boxes days before she disappeared—or did something more sinister happen? A decade later, the question haunts Grace's 17-year-old daughter, Charlie, the appealingly acerbic narrator of Klehfoth's engrossing if flawed debut. Now a junior at Knollwood Augustus Prep, the New Hampshire boarding school her father attended, whip-smart Charlie is beginning the pledging process for an ultra-exclusive secret society, the A's. As the high-stakes initiation game tests Charlie's loyalties and values, she discovers some explosive family history—challenging almost everything she has grown up believing about her parents. Unfortunately, the author's plotting fails to measure up to her ingenious amateur sleuth, relying throughout on colossal coincidences and ending with a denouement that's surprising primarily for its implausibility. Still, Klehfoth's ability to draw in the reader shows that she's an author to watch. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (July)

For 10 years, Charlotte "Charlie" Calloway has questioned what happened to her mother, Grace. Some say she was killed by Charlie's father, Alistair, while evidence pointed to Grace leaving him. But Charlie never really believed her mother would leave her and her younger sister, Seraphina, behind. As Charlie enters her junior year at a New England boarding school, she is invited to join the mysterious, elite group at school called the A's. She and her cousin, Leo, among others, are asked to complete morally questionable or dangerous tasks to prove their loyalty. All the while, flashbacks narrated by Alistair and Grace reveal their love story and the flaws in their marriage. Charlie's voice shines as she uncovers more and more about her own family history, with the support of family friend Greyson. The suspense is well executed. As Charlie draws closer to the truth of what happened to her mother, the reader is compelled to see how the events of the past will affect Charlie's truth today. The writing is descriptive without turning flowery or overly literary. Most of the major characters are well-rounded; only some supporting ones (like Seraphina) seem a bit flat. VERDICT Fans of thrillers will have difficulty putting down this excellently plotted, gripping novel.—Kelly Jo Lasher, Middle Township High School, Cape May Court House, NJ