New York Times bestselling author Megan Miranda returns with YOU BELONG HERE, a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller set in a small town that is home to a prestigious college. It is here that Miranda explores the divide between the haves and the have-nots to ask this burning question: Can you ever really come home again?

The “Howling” is a time-honored and parent-feared tradition at Wyatt College. Named for the sound the wind makes as it blows through the Virginia mountains on the first cold night of the year, it is part legend and part hazing. Freshmen are tasked with racing through the woods to the ruins of the old president’s house on the far edge of campus. Meanwhile, masked seniors play the scariest game of tag ever, hunting the freshmen and tagging them out to walk back to the dorms alone. But 20 years ago, a prank went very wrong on the night of the Howling, resulting in the deaths of two local men and the disappearance of Adalyn Vale, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed wealthy legacy student.

Adalyn is the prime suspect in the fire that trapped the men in the steam tunnels below campus. Left behind was her roommate, Beckett Bowery, the local-born daughter of two of Wyatt’s best professors. In the absence of Adalyn, Beckett was forced to bear the brunt of the rumors and accusations. Her friends and neighbors, along with the local police force, believe she had something to do with either the fire or Adalyn’s escape into thin air. Fortunately for Beckett, rumors don’t hold up in police reports or court transcripts, and she was never formally arrested. But in Wyatt Valley, rumors live a very long life.

"Megan Miranda writes an edgy, fast-paced thriller that is full of well-placed puzzle pieces, plenty of red herrings, and an atmospheric sense of time and place.... YOU BELONG HERE was a one-sit read for me."

In the two decades since she transferred to and graduated from another college, Beckett has lived a quiet life as a single mother and ghostwriter. But when Delilah secretly applies to Wyatt College and lands a full scholarship, Beckett has no choice but to return to her hometown and the campus where her life changed forever. Even beyond the usual empty-nest jitters she has about leaving her daughter at school, Beckett knows all too well the dangers lurking in the woods…and the weight her name still carries, even if only in whispers.

Sensible Beckett is quick to write off her fears and focus on her excitement for her daughter, but everything feels off from the moment she steps on campus. A local house has mysteriously burned down, her feckless high school boyfriend has somehow become the dean of the college, and she can’t stop running into her past. Still, Beckett knows Wyatt --- the village and the college --- like the back of her hand, and the fact that her parents still live just off campus provides some small comfort that Delilah will be safe.

But then, only a few weeks later, Beckett’s cell phone rings in the middle of the night. Delilah’s name lights up the screen. Beckett hears only dead air at first, but then comes the unmistakable whistle of the Howling…followed by nothing. Although she calls, emails and even Instagram DMs her daughter, Delilah has become unreachable. Beckett races back to Wyatt to a series of hair-raising discoveries: Delilah has been struggling with her roommate and requested a new dorm, her roommate claims she hasn’t slept there in weeks, and Beckett’s parents’ house --- locked while they are away on a guest professorship --- shows obvious signs of habitation.

And then the unthinkable: Despite the college insisting that the Howling has ended for good, a body is discovered in the construction pit of the old student center on the night of Delilah’s disappearance. Beckett’s past, it seems, has found her at last. But is this a reckoning with a long-buried secret, an admission of guilt, or something far more ominous? And is the target Delilah, who seems to have stumbled upon Beckett's history at Wyatt, or is she merely the bait --- a tool used to draw Beckett back to her roots and to the deaths that rocked Wyatt Village?

Megan Miranda writes an edgy, fast-paced thriller that is full of well-placed puzzle pieces, plenty of red herrings, and an atmospheric sense of time and place. She makes excellent use of the small-town college trope to craft not just a riveting, provocative mystery, but also a searingly smart character study full of the trappings of wealth and privilege, legacy and reputation, that exposes the nuances of class divides. All of her characters --- from independent Beckett to lost Delilah, conniving Adalyn and even Beckett’s aloof parents --- are flawed, but magnetically so, each making difficult decisions and telling desperate lies in order to survive.

The clash of past and present, young adulthood and parenthood, makes for some seriously tense writing, and Miranda is as adept as ever at creating not just believable suspects and victims in a murder mystery, but real women --- mothers, best friends, daughters --- who grapple with their roles in society as much as they do the crimes into which they are thrust.

Beckett is an especially well-crafted character, with her empty-nest mothering woes brilliantly juxtaposed against her investigation into the dark history of Wyatt. Miranda balances both roles perfectly, immersing Beckett fully in the Howling night crimes, but also painting her as a very real mother: well-meaning yet smothering, annoying at times, but always deeply protective of her only daughter. While a bit predictable at times, the book has you on the edge of your seat and looking over your shoulder.

YOU BELONG HERE was a one-sit read for me. If this is your first Megan Miranda novel, I recommend savoring her expertly crafted twists and turns and taking your time getting to the shocking ending. There’s simply too much good to enjoy here. And if you’re looking for your next thriller read, I have only one comment: You belong here.