By the Time You Read This I'll Be Gone (Murder, She Wrote #1)

by Stephanie Kuehn

Overview

Small town murders.

Big time thrills.

A suspenseful, modern update of the classic mystery TV series that's perfect for fans of One of Us Is Lying, Sadie, and Gossip Girl.

"Killers walk among us. Statistically, at least one of them knows your name…"

Beatrice Fletcher is obsessed with unsolved murders in her small town of Cabot Cove, Maine like her great-aunt Jessica, the famous mystery writer. But when her best friend Jackson goes missing, this time the mystery is personal.

Then Jackson fails to show up for a late night meet-up, and instead, Bea stumbles upon three students from the elite Broadmoor Academy: overly-friendly and slightly vicious Leisl, her aloof twin brother, Leif, and Carlos, who knows more about, well, everything than he’s letting on. They’re worldly, secretive, and big on playing games like tenace, the hush-hush Broadmoor tradition where anything or anyone can be a clue to future fame and fortune, and players will stop at nothing — including murder — to get ahead.

If Bea wants to find Jackson, she too must join the game and play to win. Everyone in Cabot Cove has secrets, and it’s up to Bea to ferret them out before it’s too late in this thrilling modern update of the classic television show.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781338764550
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	10/04/2022
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	780L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Stephanie Kuehn is a clinical psychologist and an award-winning author of six novels for teens, including Charm & Strange, which won the ALA's 2014 William C. Morris Award for best debut young adult novel. Booklist has praised her work as "intelligent, compulsively readable literary fiction with a dark twist." As a lifelong Murder, She Wrote fan, Stephanie recently introduced the series to her own teenagers, who now share her love of mystery and all things Cabot Cove.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Murder, She Wrote:

"A gripping thriller with a winning protagonist." — Kirkus Reviews

"In a gripping series opener, Kuehn mixes small-town coziness with intriguing dual mysteries." — Publishers Weekly

"Kuehn's Murder, She Wrote–inspired novel will turn a new generation to cozy mysteries!" — Booklist

"A slow-building, intellectual mystery." — School Library Journal

From the Publisher

2022-08-17
A young woman becomes enmeshed in an increasingly complex mystery when her friend goes missing in their hometown of Cabot Cove, the fictional Maine location of Murder, She Wrote fame.

High school junior Bea is insightful, tenacious—and vulnerable. She has also always felt somewhat like a misfit. Besides being one of the few brown-skinned people in town—her dad is White, and her mom was Black and Mexican—she works for the crime website TrueMaine, writing about unsolved murders and spending her free time sleuthing. She attends a teen therapy group to help manage the anxiety she has experienced since her mother’s death when she was 11. When her friend Jackson disappears on the night he’s supposed to join her for one of the support group meetings, it comes as little surprise that she decides to investigate. A trio of teens from nearby elite boarding school Broadmoor Academy—Carlos plus siblings Leisl and Leif—both assist and complicate her investigative efforts. Readers will be quickly swept up in the historical cold case that seems to have laid the foundation for Jackson’s vanishing. Small-town secrets and scandals abound, and while the conclusion offers some degree of satisfying resolution, there is much that is left unexplained that can be addressed in the sequel.

A gripping thriller with a winning protagonist that sets the stage for more. (Mystery. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews