Teen Tuesday

Stay Dead by April Henry (Christy Ottaviano Books, 28 May 2024).

Sixteen-year-old Milan Mayhew has just been kicked out of another private school. 

The headmistress is understanding:  Milan’s had a tough year.  Her father Jack, a U.S. senator, was killed in a car accident. Milan, in the car with him, survived, but blames herself for distracting him by being a brat.  Her mother ran for his seat and won, then sent Milan off to boarding school.

This one is the third in six months.  Despite being understanding of the teen’s emotional state, she takes Milan to the small local airport where she’ll be picked up by her mom’s plane, on the way back to her home in Portland.

But somewhere over the Cascade Mountains, the plane blows up.  When Milan wakes up, she’s trapped in her seat, but manages to free herself.  Everyone else appears to have been killed, but she finds her mom, Heather, a short distance from the wreckage. 

Knowing she’s going to die, Heather explains to Milan that her father’s death wasn’t an accident, and neither was the plane crash.  Jack was killed because of evidence he found against a fracking company, and when Heather won his seat, they targeted her, too.

Milan’s assignment is to go home, find the flash drive containing the evidence, and deliver it to Jack’s mentor. 

Of course, it’s a big task for a teenage girl, but Milan is determined that the people who killed her parents will pay. 

An avid hiker, Milan is proficient in wilderness survival skills, all of which she is forced to use as she struggles against nature (and a human who has realized that Milan survived the crash) to reach civilization and find the evidence.

Stay Dead, like all of April Henry’s novels, is well-researched.  Henry is also a proficient storyteller, and like most of her novels, is difficult to put down once begun.

April Henry is the New York Times-bestselling author of 29 mysteries and thrillers for teens and adults. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her family. Her 2023 novel Girl Forgotten won the Edgar Award for Young Adult Novel.

Many thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for providing me with the egalley to review.