“Addictive from its first pages, Colleen McKeegan’s The Wild One mines all the complexities and darkness of young women in the battleground of summer camp, fashioning a riveting tale of secrets, shame and a harrowing reckoning.”—New York Times bestselling author Megan Abbott

“I couldn’t put down this smart and astute page-turning debut. Colleen McKeegan has beautifully crafted a narrative that explores the ways trauma and societal expectations shape the women we become. The engaging prose and razor-sharp twists and turns will keep readers on the edges of their seats until the very last page.”—Jo Piazza, internationally bestselling author of Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win and We Are Not Like Them

In this dark and twisted coming-of-age thriller, a deadly childhood secret that binds three young women threatens to destroy their lives.

Amanda Brooks is a born-and-bred New Yorker with an envious life: she’s in a great graduate school program, lives in a cozy Tribeca apartment, and is head-over-heels for her handsome, committed boyfriend. But Amanda’s life isn’t as picture perfect as it seems. For over a decade she’s been hiding a dark secret—a secret that goes back to that summer at Camp Catalpa when a man died in the woods. Fellow campers Catherine and Meg were there too, and in the years since, not one of them has ever spoken about what happened that day.

Until Amanda slips—and the truth threatens to explode the tightly controlled façade of her life.

When her past begins to poison her present, threatening her relationship, Amanda has no one to turn to except the two women who know her most monstrous self. Reuniting with Catherine and Meg one last time, Amanda is desperate to put the demons of that twisted summer to rest.

But when trusting anyone, even one another, starts to feel like a wildly risky proposition, just how far will these three go to keep the truth from emerging—and their lives from unraveling?

Today’s Book of The Day is sponsored by this week’s Kids’ eBook of The Week:

At seventeen, Mei should be in high school, but skipping fourth grade was part of her parents’ master plan. Now a freshman at MIT, she is on track to fulfill the rest of this predetermined future: become a doctor, marry a preapproved Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer, produce a litter of babies.

With everything her parents have sacrificed to make her cushy life a reality, Mei can’t bring herself to tell them the truth—that she (1) hates germs, (2) falls asleep in biology lectures, and (3) has a crush on her classmate Darren Takahashi, who is decidedly not Taiwanese.

But when Mei reconnects with her brother, Xing, who is estranged from the family for dating the wrong woman, Mei starts to wonder if all the secrets are truly worth it. Can she find a way to be herself, whoever that is, before her web of lies unravels?

From debut author Gloria Chao comes a hilarious, heartfelt tale of how, unlike the panda, life isn’t always so black and white.