No phones. No internet. No social media at all. That’s what it’s going to take to finally get serious about school and focus on exams. Nova, Vin and Lotus even rented a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere so they won’t get distracted. After that, everything can go back to normal. But they aren’t alone. Someone is watching them from the forest. Someone who knows their secrets. Someone who wants revenge. And things will never be the same again.

This dramatic, contemporary thriller involves inappropriate sexual relations, bullying, counter-bullying, blackmail, romantic triangles and revenge. What makes it particularly intriguing is that it’s a mystery shrouded in a mystery. By that I mean there are three main characters (two female and one male high school students who appear to be friends) and three alternating points of view. One is Lotus (female), the primary character. The other two are anonymous and keep us guessing who they are till the end. One of the anonymous point-of-view characters is identified as “Summer/Fall/Winter” and the other appears only as brief thoughts printed on a black page. This technique is confusing, strange, clever, original and more than a little maddening! Finally, of these two unidentified characters, one is (spoiler alert) a male, and one is (spoiler alert, and strangely for a young-adult novel) an adult.

There are secrets galore in this story, and the author lets us in on them so slowly that we want to punch her out, or peek at the final pages (which we won’t, of course), but it also means we can’t put the book down, and tension rules. The twist at the end is… well, pretty twisted. The bullying sometimes seems over the top, but it sure steers both plot and characters. Combined with a spooky, isolated location in the woods, Stranger Danger is a thriller through and through, that also bravely tackles some important teen topics.

-Pam Withers