BUY US
THE FIVE OF US
Dark academia is turned inside out in The Five of Us , an unsettling, propulsive thriller where home is not a sanctuary, isolation looms, and the future has evaporated. All that’s left is fear, frustration, and an anger that won’t go away.
Meet Crow, Goldfinch, Starling, Wren, and Cuckoo—five girls who will never tell you their real names. They’re the brightest students at an underfunded, inner-city Bristol school, pushing toward opportunity despite the odds stacked against them. They believe they’re on the cusp of something better … until the world abruptly shuts down. Exams are cancelled, their plans collapse, and the future dissolves into a fog of uncertainty.
With long nights, a city under curfew, and nothing left to lose, the girls slip into a world of dark possibility. Each illicit outing becomes its own kind of dangerous magic. Their choices spiral—from reckless to ruthless—and by the end of a strange, suspended summer, more than one person will be dead.
Seven years later, the survivors have not spoken since. But someone knows what happened. Someone who has been watching. Hunting. Taunting. As they stumble through an adulthood they were never prepared for—and reckon with all the wounds of a generation left behind—the rage that bound them together in the past resurfaces with lethal force.
They broke the rules. And now the rules may end up breaking them.
Praise for The Five of Us
The Five of Us is at once a story of vengeance, a coming of age novel, and an exploration of how seductive power can be once you realize you have it. A tense, dark gem of a thriller.
Tracy Sierra, Author of FALLON BOOK CLUB PICK Nightwatching
THE FIVE OF US is a brilliantly conceived story of rivalry, vengeance, and the terrible secrets that can lurk within even the closest of friendships. With gripping suspense, Gilbert imagines the lockdown world of Cuckoo, Wren, Goldie, Starling, and Crow with great imagination and twists galore. An unputdownable parable for our hypervigilant age.
Bruce Holsinger, AUTHOR OF OPRAH BOOK CLUB PICK CULPABILITY
V.A. VAZQUEZ, AUTHOR OF THE DEATH ROW CLUB
The suspense burns like a slow fuse until it explodes with one shocking twist after another.
Brian Freeman, New York Times Bestselling Author of Photograph
Eerie, eye-opening, and simmering with tension, The Five of Us is The Secret History for the lockdown generation. It’s Sian Gilbert’s most compelling novel yet – a haunting, unforgettable read.
KELLY AND KRISTINA MANCARUSO, AUTHORS OF RUMOURED
Wildly original and deliciously dark.
ELKA RAY, AUTHOR OF A FRIEND INDEED
Gilbert’s coming-of-age tale with deeply explored themes of friendship takes a deadly twist as the group takes justice for the underprivileged into their own hands.