The Make-Up Test by Jenny L Howe (2022)

Set in an English PhD program, this second-chance romance, enemies-to-lovers story focuses on Allison Avery and Colin Benjamin. The pair dated while doing their undergrad at Brown. They broke up because he won an award that she thought she had in the bag. It would have helped further her career and would have come with a $10K prize. It may sound petty but it’s legit: he knew how important it was for/to her, lied about his interest, applied behind her back, and if he hadn’t, she would have won. And right afterwards, he broke up with her. This might not have been as devastating as it was, if not for Allison’s fraught relationship (or lack of one) with her father. Allison‘s father is pretty much vacant from her life, and has always belittled her interests and her weight. (The man’s a real corker.)

From the beginning, it’s obvious that Colin wants to get back together. Allison‘s reluctance/hatred is understandable, but the man persists. It soon becomes apparent that he’s grown since the last time they interacted, grown in a good way, especially in his humility/vulnerability. (At one point in the book, I was really wondering how she was going to get past her distrust of him so that their relationship could move forward.) Their relationship is also complicated by the competitive tendencies of both. What really brings things to a head is their professor’s announcement that she can only have one of them as an advisee. So, it’s the competition for the prize all over again.

The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious #4) by Maureen Johnson (2021)

This next installment in the Truly Devious series takes place the summer after the events of the trilogy and acts as a stand-alone.

At the end of The Hand in the Wall, Stevie'd become famous as a result of solving the crime of the century. By the time The Box in the Woods begins, her fame has started to fade (which Stevie is grateful for). But, her sleuthing prowess catches the eye of Carson Buchwald, the owner and founder of Box Box, who recently purchased Camp Sunny Pines (previously known as Camp Wonder Falls, the home to an unsolved Michael Myers-type slaughter of 4 camp counselors back in the 70s). Carson is making a true-crime podcast/documentary and hopes that Stevie will join him for the summer and look into the case (she can bring friends and he’ll pay her). Faced with an obnoxious summer of working at a grocery’s deli counter, Stevie takes him up on the offer, with Janelle and Nate joining in on the fun. (David is stuck working on the campaign trail of someone *not* his father.)

Like the first three books, this story jumps between the 70s and present day. We get some great interaction between the friends (I particularly love Nate and his grumpy resignation). And the new side characters were also intriguing in this ode to those grizzly camp murder mysteries. It didn’t take me long to be sucked into the mystery and start the hunt for the killer.

Truly Devious Trilogy by Maureen Johnson (2018-2020)

Look! A riddle! Time for fun!
Should we use a rope or gun?
Knives are sharp and gleam so pretty.
Poison’s slow, which is a pity.
Fire is festive, drowning’s slow.
Hanging’s a ropy way to go.
A broken head, a nasty fall,
a car colliding with a wall.
Bombs make a very jolly noise –
such ways to punish naughty boys!
What shall we use? We can’t decide.
Just like you cannot run or hide.
Ha ha.
Truly, Devious.

The Truly Devious trilogy — Truly Devious, The Disappearing Stair, and The Hand on the Wall — is a mystery set in the 1930s and in present-day Vermont. In the 1930s, Albert Ellingham founded Ellingham Academy, an elite school for high school students. Ellingham loved riddles (and penning them) and his academy was to be a place to help the brightest minds flourish, full of puzzles, gardens and secret passageways. But soon after its founding (while parts of the school were still under construction), the Academy became famous for another reason: in 1936, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. While Ellingham cooperated and paid the ransom, his wife, Iris, and daughter, Alice, were not returned. Iris’s body washed up on shore a few days after the kidnapping, and a known anarchist was convicted of the kidnapping, but his daughter was never found. For the rest of his life, Ellingham believed that Alice would come home and the Academy will be hers when she returns.