Written by Frieda McFadden, published in 2022. Summary and review.

This is the second book I’ve read by Freida McFadden (Never Lie, being the first). I was riding a pretty good high off some nice twists and turns from Never Lie that pushed me on to One by One, another thriller. One by One takes place with 3 couples looking to have a nice weekend away in the woods at a secluded cabin/hotel. When things begin to unravel, and our crew never makes it to their destination.

The car breaks down, conveniently, in the middle of nowhere, miles from civilization and (naturally) without any cell service to call for help. They decide to hoof it towards where they believe their hotel is but one by one (the title of the book!) our characters go missing and (gulp), die.

Claire, our main character, is unhappy in her marriage… likely a very common scenario in the real-world, but also a trope that doesn’t, at least in this case, translate to a gripping tale or provide any shock value when we learn Claire has been cheating on him… with his best friend… and fellow trip goer. Scandalous.

Now I’ll admit there was at least one solid twist and turn that I did not see coming. Our killer was unexpected, though how the rest of our trip goers go down is a bit of a stretch. The plan of the killer was poorly thought out at best (minus the one initial deception) and felt highly unrealistic… especially for a story based in reality.

TLDR: This was a pretty easy read and not terribly hard to follow along. No character is particularly engaging or captivating, but it does provide enough unseen moments to keep things somewhat interesting. Meh. 3/5 Stars.