Eighteen-year-old Addie Blackwood regrets nothing more than one horrible, mistake-filled night last summer. Hours after she hurled the worst words she could think of at her sister, Fiona was found dead at the bottom of a ravine. The police ruled her death an accident, but Addie’s never bought it. Her ballet-prodigy sister didn’t slip and fall; she was pushed. And Addie’s number one suspect: Thatcher Montgomery, the rich kid down the street who always had a thing for Fiona. But when Thatcher is found dead in the same ravine, Addie must admit she was wrong.

Two years ago, four friends went into the abandoned religious reform school Dominic House. Only three came out. Riley still bears horrific scars from that night. He doesn’t speak to his friends anymore. And he’s haunted by the truth: Riley’s boyfriend, Ethan, didn’t disappear...Something in that house took him. Now, alongside TV’s most famous ghost hunter, Jordan Jones, Riley is returning, determined to find out what happened to Ethan.

Alex Walker has always looked up to her perfect older sister. Maddie has succeeded in all the ways Alex has not: She escaped their hometown and seems to have put the memories of their unstable childhood behind her. But despite the different paths their lives have taken, the two sisters made a pact to spend one week together every summer. It was a promise they’d never broken . . . until now.

It's been years since Nova last saw Sam. She was too young then to understand why he had to move away-and what it had to do with the cuts and bruises he got from home and never wanted to talk about. All she knew is that they promised to find each other when they were older, something she thought was impossible. Until she bumps into Sam in her new school and realizes he has forgotten their childhood promise.

Margaret Dashwood lives her life according to plan, and it involves absolutely zero heartbreak, thank you very much. Five years ago, love tore her family apart, and since then, she’s kept her own heart as safe as possible. It hasn’t been easy, especially since her sister Marianne—the world’s biggest romantic—has conveniently forgotten that love burned her so badly she literally almost died. So when their oldest sister, Elinor, invites Margaret along for a Marianne-free summer cruise, she can’t wait to soak up every scheduled moment with sensible Elinor before heading off to college.

Quinn Calvet was supposed to be having an epic year. She had plans with her best friend, Ximena, and sister, Ava, and to grow her following as an influencer on The Whine. Instead, Quinn finds herself third wheel to Ximena and her boyfriend or getting ditched by Ava who has turned into an overachiever, obsessed with studying and joining school clubs. It brings up Quinn's old feelings that her disability has her left behind. She tries to talk to Ava about it, but she's too busy with the newest club at school, Defend Kids.

The Precipice is a legendary family-owned hotel on the rocky coast of Maine. With the recent passing of their father, the Bishop sisters—Iris, Vicki, and Faith—have come for the weekend to claim it. But with a hurricane looming and each of the Bishop sisters harboring dangerous secrets, there's murder in the air—and not everyone who checks into the Precipice will be checking out. Each sister wants what is rightfully hers, and in the mix is the Precipe's nineteen-year-old chambermaid Charley Kelley: smart, resilient, older than her years, and in desperate straits.

Jude loves photography, and he’s good at it, too. Between his parents’ divorce and his anxiety, being behind a camera is the only time his mind is quiet. Florence is confronting the premature end of her dance career as a degenerative eye disease begins to steal her balance. She’s having a hard time letting go. The two meet at Sunrise Night, their sleepaway art camp’s dusk-to-dawn closing celebration, and decide to take a chance on each other.

In an alternate 1991, the authoritarian US government keeps tabs on everybody and everything. It censors which books can be read, what music can be listened to, and which plays can be performed. When her best friend is killed by the authorities and her theater teacher disappears without a trace, Gigi decides to organize her fellow Champaign High School thespians to put on a production of Henry VI. But at what cost?

Banal Nightmare is filled with complicated characters who will dazzle you in their rendering just as often as they will infuriate you with their decisions. Halle Butler singularly captures the volatile, angry, aggrieved, surreal and entirely disorienting atmosphere of the modern era.