Kill Creatures is a tense young-adult psychological thriller that upends the usual “who-done-it” mystery by revealing the killer up front and then turning the question inward. The story orbits 17-year-old Nan Carver, who’s spent the past year in Saltcedar, Utah, grieving the disappearance of her three best friends, Edie, Jane, and Luce, after a summer night out in Saltcedar Canyon. During a memorial vigil, that grief shatters when Luce suddenly returns alive — and Nan knows why, because she’s the one who killed her and the others.
Narrated through Nan’s increasingly unreliable voice and alternating past-and-present timelines, the novel pulls readers through a labyrinth of secrets, lies, and desperate self-justification. As the police reopen the investigation, Nan struggles to keep her version of events intact while buried truths and darker twists emerge, reshaping the mystery around identity, betrayal, and consequences. Critics have praised the book’s gripping pacing, atmospheric tension, and smart plotting, describing it as unputdownable and emotionally shivery.
