The Wild Girls

by Phoebe Morgan

Genres: Friendship

Synopsis

In the vein of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware, a deliciously wicked and atmospheric thriller about a group of old friends who plan to reconnect on an African safari vacation, but soon learn that their wild pasts have finally caught up with them.

“A wonderfully atmospheric thriller of secrets, lies and betrayals . . . a heart-stopping rollercoaster of a read.” —B.A. Paris, author of Behind Closed Doors

FOUR FRIENDS. A LUXURY RETREAT. IT’S GOING TO BE MURDER.

It’s been years since Grace, Felicity, Alice, and Hannah were together. The “Wild Girls,” as they were once called, are no longer so wild. Alice is a teacher. Hannah has a new baby. Grace is a homebody. Only Felicity seems to have retained her former spark.

Then Felicity invites them all on the weekend of a lifetime—a birthday bash in Botswana. It will be a chance to have fun and rekindle their once bomb-proof friendship… and finally put that one horrible night, all those years ago, behind them for good.

But soon after arriving at the luxury safari lodge, a feeling of unease settles over them. There’s no sign of the party that was promised. There’s no phone signal. They are on their own… and things start to go very, very wrong. 

A fresh approach to the classic locked-room mystery, The Wild Girls is sure to appeal to fans of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley. 

Release date: April 26, 2022

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

Print pages: 320

Sample

Chapter One

February 14

London

Grace

I’m working from home today, so I spend most of the morning on my laptop, googling photos of Botswana. I don’t even bother with a shower or my contact lenses, just sit there in my scrubby white dressing gown, glasses on, scrolling through the pictures. It says the temperature over there is eighty-six degrees, even in February, and it only gets hotter in March. Felicity always hated having a March birthday, said she wanted to be born in the summer when everyone was in the mood to drink rosé at any time of day. I continue scrolling through the websites, lose myself slightly in the images—imagining the hot sun on my back, the rustle of the grass underneath my feet. It’s been so long since I left London. Sometimes, I feel like I’m destined to be in Peckham forever, as though my soul will wander the busy streets for years after I die.

Botswana would be something different. It would be an adventure. And I’d get to see the girls again, after all this time. Girls—it’s ridiculous to call them that, now that we are all women in our thirties, but that is what we’ve always been. That silly nickname: the wild girls. Old habits die hard, after all. The thought of seeing them makes my stomach twist. Memories spin in my mind, like tricks of the light that I cannot quite catch.

Perhaps I don’t want to.

I picture them; Alice Warner, her long black hair trailing down her back, her wide smile, the smell of her musky perfume as she leans in close to me, sharing a secret. The look on her face after she’s had a few too many glasses of red wine—which, let’s face it, used to happen more often than not. The way her eyes glow when she’s got gossip. And Hannah Jones, God, Hannah. The sensible one—the one we all needed the most. The mother hen—a real mother now, judging by her latest Instagram photos that I look at sometimes on long, lonely evenings but am too scared to like. The one who’d tuck the covers around you after a night out, be first up in the morning making tea and toast. Those big blue eyes that made you think everything was going to be all right; her clean, calm home; that pale English rose skin that she didn’t even have to do anything to. Like an advert for serenity, was Hannah.

And Felicity Denbigh. The one who kept us all together—until she didn’t anymore. I conjure her up—that bright, almost white-blond hair that she smoothed down twenty times a day, a surprising, infectious cackle of a laugh that strangers always thought she was faking. The silver rings on her fingers, the way they glinted in the light. Her bright red lipstick, no matter what. Felicity the fun one. The popular one. The one you want around.

Only she hasn’t been around—not for two years. Suddenly, as I think of them, the way we were, I am struck with a visceral pang of longing that almost makes me gasp. The room seems starker, shabbier, even more lonely than it already is. Without their energy, their friendship, my own life has dwindled even further somehow, lost its shine. It’s not that the flat isn’t all right—it’s okay in the summer, when the sun beams into the living room and we don’t have to worry about the heating as much. Rosie does so much exercise that she’s always boiling, but I can’t say the same for myself.

I moved to this flat two years ago, after everything happened and I stopped seeing the girls, and ever since, my life has been . . . I don’t even know what the word is. Static, I suppose. I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping my distance from them all, and of course, I couldn’t go near Felicity. But maybe I was wrong.

I exhale. It’s taken me a long time to admit it to myself, but it’s true. As everyone around me moves forward—having babies, getting married, buying houses, moving, in Felicity’s case, to New York—I have stayed still. Worse than still—sinking.

And this invitation has got to be the thing that gets me out. I check my phone, and my stomach lurches as I see the little red notification pop up, like a finger tapping me on the shoulder, impossible to ignore. One new message.

Hannah has replied.

Hannah

Hannah doesn’t respond to Grace’s message straightaway. She needs some time to think. For Felicity to invite them now, after all this time—it feels odd to her. Is it a peace offering? A sign that she wants things to go back to how they were? Or is it simply another chance to show off—to tell the world how much better her life is than the rest of theirs?

That’s the thing about Felicity, Hannah thinks. Everything about her life has to be the best. The best job, the best boyfriend—although actually, she’s not sure whether Felicity and Nathaniel are still together anymore—the best incredibly glamorous apartment in central Manhattan. On forgiving days, Hannah thinks it is because of what happened to her, what her father did—and on other days she is not so sure. She hates thinking about Felicity’s father; Michael Denbigh has been known to pop up in her dreams and she quickly pushes the thought away.

When Felicity first moved to New York, two years ago, so soon after the night everything fell apart, she promised them all that she’d keep in touch. Hannah thinks of the message she sent telling them about the move, how sudden and abrupt it felt. But in it, she did say she’d call, Hannah knows she did. She’d even sent Felicity flowers. Lilies, for her new flat. She remembered afterward that Felicity always said they reminded her of funerals, but she’d only meant them as a nice gesture. Or an olive branch, ...