When We Were Monsters

The compulsive new thriller from multimillion-copy bestselling author Jennifer Niven.Eight students walk into an exclusive writers’ retreat, but only one will walk out with a life-changing opportunity to realize their creative dreams.Effy is piecing together a story about the tragic betrayal that led to her mother’s death. Arlo hopes to publish a novel – but he’s also trying to start a new chapter with Effy after he broke her heart and ghosted her three years earlier.Their mentor is Meredith Graffam, enigmatic writer, director and actress, whose compelling accounts of her own near-death experience on the same retreat decades before continue to spark controversy.But this celebrated teacher is not all she seems, and her students gradually realize they are fighting for something much more primal than academic advantage. As Graffam’s unorthodox teaching methods push them past breaking point, they reveal their darkest secrets, take unthinkable risks and slowly start to turn on one another. But Graffam never expected they would turn on her . . .The Secret History meets One of Us is Lying in the most gripping thriller of the year.

Jennifer Niven is the #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author of All the Bright Places, Holding Up the Universe and Breathless. Her books have been translated in over 75 languages and have won literary awards around the world. An Emmy-award winning screenwriter, she co-wrote the script for the All the Bright Places movie— currently streaming on Netflix and starring Elle Fanning and Justice Smith. She is also the author of several narrative nonfiction titles and the Velva Jean historical fiction series. Jennifer divides her time between coastal Georgia and Los Angeles with her husband and literary cats.