Smile for the Cameras: A Novel

A CRIMEREADS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Twenty years ago, Ella Winters was the it girl. She made a name for herself in Hollywood and throughout America as the sole survivor in the cult-classic slasher Grad Night. But the real horror is what happened when the cameras weren’t rolling—something terrible that Ella and her co-stars agreed never to speak of again. Shortly after the movie’s premiere, Ella disappeared from the acting scene under the pretense of caring for her ailing mother, hoping for a quiet life out of the spotlight to ease her guilty mind.

Since her mother’s passing, Ella has decided to return to the silver screen. And with the cast and crew of Grad Night in the process of filming a reunion documentary, Ella has an express ticket back into Hollywood’s good graces. Weighed down by the secret she’s been keeping all these years, Ella apprehensively makes the trip to the original set—a cabin in rural Tennessee—to reunite with her castmates for the first time in more than a decade. But when the actors begin to meet the same gruesome fates as the characters they originally played, falling victim to someone dressed as the Grad Night villain, it’s clear their secret is out.

Now, the question is: Can the final girl survive one last nightmare?