You Will Be Mine by Natasha Preston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Scare Factor: 💀💀💀💀
Plot: 📕📕📕📕
Format: 🎧
POV: First Person


🕊️ ➞ Tropes:

🔪Slasher🔪
🕵🏻Whodunit🕵🏻
👤Red Herring👤
🚫Trust No One 🚫
🩸Gruesome 🩸


✴✴✴ TW: Depiction of murder ✴✴✴


🕊️ ➞ Progress Notes & Initial Thoughts:

FINALLY, A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED SLASHER.



This was exactly what I needed. Well-written, compelling plot, everything you need in a slasher!


🕊️ ➞ Summary Breakdown & Commentary:

🐦‍⬛ ↳ Thursday, February 1:

Six British flatmates were getting ready for the annual Valentine’s Day play at their university. Lylah, Sienna, Isaac, Sonny, Charlotte, and Chace. Lylah is our Final Girl. We learn that Valentine’s Day was a hard holiday for her as this year was the second anniversary of her parents’ death. After their passing, seventeen-year-old Lylah went to live with her older brother, Riley, who was twenty-one at the time. They grew very dependent on each other and Riley became very protective and worrisome for his little sister.

As Lylah, Sienna, and Charlotte were in the living room, they chatted and teased Lylah about her crush on Chace when they heard the doorbell ring. Lylah opened the door and found nothing but an envelope on the doormat addressed to Sonny. Inside was a note made from cut-out magazine letters.

“Your Heart Will Be Mine.”

Chalking it up as a prank, the group continued with their night. After getting settled at their assigned table, Chace and Lylah went to the bar where the bartender produced a polaroid of the group at their table and said that their drinks were paid for. When the couple questioned the bartender about who gave them this photograph, he couldn’t describe the man beyond the fact that he was wearing a black hoodie. Freaked out, they accepted the drinks and took the photograph back with them to the table. There, it was Sienna who noticed that the back of the image was peeling to reveal another note.

“Tick Tok, Sonny.”

Lylah began getting spooked but everyone made jokes and finished their evening. As they were leaving, everyone decided to skip out on the after-party and head home. Everyone except Sonny.

On the walk home, Lylah’s skittishness around the evening continued. She noticed fresh writing on a wall by their house that said:

“You Will Be Mine.”

Once inside, the group dispersed to their respective rooms and Lylah began getting ready for bed. She went to throw back her comforter when something stabbed her. A thorned rose was mixed in with her blankets. She shook her head and cursed Sonny, believing it to be another one of his surprise “gifts.” Something Sonny had done in the past.


🐦‍⬛ ↳ Friday, February 2:

By the following morning, the group realized that Sonny hadn’t returned home the night before and also missed several of his classes. This was abnormal for Sonny so his flatmates decided to report him missing to the campus police who then informed the regular police. Lylah’s unease remained and she felt as if she could see the hooded figure everywhere.


🐦‍⬛ ↳ Saturday, February 3:

After answering questions for the police the night before and getting little to no sleep, Lylah and Chace headed to the editing suite on campus to work on a project. As soon as Lylah opened the door, they were bombarded with an awful rotting smell. You guessed it. Hello there, Sonny Boy.



The killer standing over Sonny’s dead body:



They found Sonny slumped against one of the walls of the suite with his chest bloody. After calling the police, Lylah and Chace are brought to the station to get a statement and answer questions. It’s there that Chace told Lylah he overheard two officers talking about how Sonny’s heart had been cut out and remained missing most of the storyline.

The group began to speculate who could’ve done this, the group landed on Jake. Jake was a former roommate who had a crush on Lylah. Last year on Valentine’s Day, Jake had tried to kiss Lylah and she rejected him. Explaining that she didn’t see him that way, Jake appeared to have taken the rejection in stride. Several months later, Jake dropped open stating he needed to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. Everyone kind of drifted from Jake after he left and they got busy with classes.

As the group declared it ✨must ✨ be Jake — little to no evidence, by the way — the police had called Jake’s family to get his whereabouts and such. We’re introduced to Jake’s older brother, Zak, who informed Lylah that Jake left home a few weeks earlier to travel, and his family hadn’t heard from him in a week or two.


🐦‍⬛ ↳ Sunday, February 4:

While Lylah and Chace were walking to class, they noticed a commotion of students gathered around the bulletin board. Pinned to the board with a knife was a bloody heart. Panic ensued amongst both the group and the university’s student body.



Don’t worry, it was a pig’s heart. But that begged the question… Where was Sonny’s heart?



When they returned home, Lylah and Chace noticed a bouquet of roses. One flower short of a dozen.



That evening, another note appeared on their doorstep. This time it was addressed to Isaac.

“Your Turn.”

Naturally, everyone panicked. Police began to worry for the safety of the group and assigned each a private detail while also telling the group to continue like normal.




🐦‍⬛ ↳ Monday, February 5:

Shortly after Isaac received the note, Nora, a student who lived across the street, was murdered in the same way as Sonny. While Nora was friendly with the flatmates, she wasn’t a part of the group. Not a lot of similar interests Lylah noted.

With Nora having been killed in the same gruesome way as Sonny, the flatmates grew confused at Nora’s connection to their former housemate. Nora was known to be more into her studies while Sonny was a partier, this left them confused on how the two crossed paths.

So we got two dead bodies, a missing suspect, and no leads on his whereabouts?




🐦‍⬛ ↳ Wednesday, February 7:

Lylah woke up to the heat turned off and a white box sitting inside their closed front door.



How TF did this guy get inside? How’d they get passed the police detail? Was the killer someone who lived in the house?

I don’t know how everyone didn’t just stand there like this:



Being the horror movie lover that I am, I’d be looking at my housemates like:



Then I’d dip out.

A N Y W A Y S

The box contained a heart. Human? We aren’t sure.

That evening, everyone besides Charlotte attended the Valentine’s Day fireworks display on campus. There, Lylah was grabbed by the killer from behind and dragged into an alley. She tried to fight and get away but his grip was strong. She lost her fight when the killer bit down on her neck to the point of almost piercing her skin. After he let go, he released her and shoved her forward onto her knees before he fled. Leaving behind another envelope.

“I Can Get You Any Time I Want.”

The police chased after him in the direction he ran but were unsuccessful in capturing him.


🐦‍⬛ ↳ Friday, February 9:

After a few more separations and scares, Isaac eventually went missing. Everyone was frantic and later on while the police were at the house, a third note appeared.

“Editing Suite.”

At the editing suite, Isaac’s body was recovered. He was found lying flat on his back on top of a table, arms hanging and eyes staring at the ceiling. His chest cavity was gorged open and his heart was removed.

With three people now dead, two of whom being their housemates, the remaining members of the group grew more and more panicked. Trying desperately to find Jake before he picked anyone else off.


🐦‍⬛ ↳ Saturday, February 10:

Whilst everyone was at home and in their rooms, Lylah came downstairs to find another note sitting on their interior welcome mat.

“Your Heart Will Be Mine.”

That evening they all went out to their favorite bar and were approached by a man in a tracksuit hand-delivering them an envelope containing polaroids of all of them doing their day-to-day things.


🐦‍⬛ ↳ Monday, February 12:

Lylah woke up to find Chace in the kitchen holding an envelope. But the letter wasn’t what made her pain, it was the strands of hair along with it. Her hair.

Later in the day, a note was left in their mailbox along with the rest of their mail…

“Meet Me Alone, or I Strike Again.”

While they waited for the police to arrive, the flatmates sat around the table when Lylah’s phone alerted her to a text message.

“On Valentine’s Day, You Will Be Mine.”

Then,

“Can’t Wait Until Valentine’s Day. Meet Me at Limbo Tonight. 10 PM. Alone.”

🐦‍⬛ ↳ Tuesday, February 13:

We learn that Limbo was an old campus club that had shut down a year earlier. Lylah went to meet the killer at Limbo, but he knew she wouldn’t come alone. It was a ruse while he convinced Charlotte out of the house.

“I Knew You’d Betray Me.”

When Lylah and the detectives returned, they realized Charlotte was unaccounted for and the back door was left open. Now it was a race against time to get Charlotte back before the killer could get to her first.



Fed up with playing by the killer’s rules, Lylah messaged Jake and begged him not to hurt Charlotte. The killer responded quickly.

“Charlotte’s already dead. You shouldn’t have turned me down.”

🐦‍⬛ ↳ Wednesday, February 14:

Charlotte’s body was found starfished on the hood of one of the police car escorts. Her heart was missing. Since this was on campus, not only did Lylah and Chace see it but the crowd took videos and pictures of the corpse.



Overcome with numbness and grief, Lylah just wanted to finish this. She texted the killer exactly that and he responded with a location and time.

The meetup spot was an old home in an abandoned housing development set to be demolished. Lylah snuck out and when she entered the home she was in for a real surprise!

Were you able to guess who the killer was? The red herring (Jake) was so obvious that it had wrong….. Have you got your guesses locked in?… Yes?… Perfect…



Our killer was….



It was Riley in the house with the knife!



Riley’s motive was “LyLaH yOu’Re GeTtInG tOo ClOsE tO yOuR fRiEnDs!” oh and a sprinkle of “HoW dArE yOu AtTeNd CoLlEgE aNd PuT sChOoL oVeR mE!” Delusion. He was completely unhinged and it was a great ending. I enjoyed Riley as the villain. His motive and logic were completely unhinged. He felt her drifting away and blowing him off to spend time with her friends. I guess he felt abandoned. To rectify that, he eliminated the “obstacles” aka Lylah’s friends. He truly believed she’d understand and go with him.



When the cops showed up at the meeting location, Riley stabbed Lylah in the stomach before he fled the premises. She survived and a year later Riley still hadn’t been caught. Since then, the remainder of the group downsized and moved in together somewhere new. It was when it was approaching a year since the murders and three years since her parents’ death that Lylah received an envelope with just her name on it.

“You Will Be Mine, Sis.”

🕊️ ➞ Closing Thoughts:

This was a four-star one for me! It was fast-paced, engaging, gory, and filled with suspense. I felt the main characters could’ve taken better precautions when it came to protecting themselves but hey, how else would we have a story?

Give it a read! Comment below with your thoughts!

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