Five Total Strangers

Mira has to be home for the holidays, and a blizzard is making that harder by the hour. Her connecting flight is canceled, and the airport looks like it could hold her for days. Then Harper, who sat next to her on the first flight, offers a lift. Harper and three friends are driving her way and have room for one more.

The trouble starts once the car is moving. Mira realizes that the people sharing it are strangers to one another, not a group of friends, and that each of them is keeping something back. The book is a young adult thriller with a mystery at its center, told in a closed setting: one car, one storm, five people.

The roads get worse as the snow comes down. Belongings begin to vanish from the car for no clear reason. Mira comes to suspect that someone among her fellow passengers is lying, and may be tampering with the trip itself. What that person wants is the question that keeps her guessing.

Expect a tense, claustrophobic read, with the cold and the failing roads adding to the suspicion inside the car. The stakes are simple and immediate: Mira needs to get home, and it is not clear she will survive the drive.