Bury Your Friends: The nepo-baby thriller from YA bestseller Benjamin Dean

By Author / Illustrator

Benjamin Dean

Genre

Suspense & Thrillers

Age range(s)

14+

Publisher

Simon & Schuster YA

ISBN

9781398540712

Format

Paperback / softback

Published

14-08-2025

Synopsis

From bestselling and award-winning author Benjamin Dean comes a dark, decadent and deadly YA thriller following the perfectly privileged lives of spoilt rich kids and the messy, murderous things they'll do to get what they want. For fans of How to Die Famous, One of Us is Lying and Five Survive.

Ten friends. One night. A classy celebration. A deranged killer. Lots of murder.

Noah and his best friends are finally graduating from Woodthorn Academy with the world and all its promises laid out before them. To celebrate exam results day, they're hosting a party weekend at Black Stone, an opulent country estate, for the whole school to attend. But for one night only, the ten friends will have a low-key celebration - after all, it's how the upper echelons begin their futures.

But things take a sinister turn when they find themselves in the crosshairs of a killer making one simple demand: every hour, one person must be evicted from the house or someone inside the house will die.

With nowhere to run and a killer on the prowl, choices must be made. But, as people inside the house start to go missing too, it soon becomes clear that nobody is safe. By the time morning comes, who will have survived the night? And is the killer much closer than they realised . . .

PRAISE FOR BENJAMIN DEAN: 'A scandalous thriller.' The Guardian. 'Benjamin Dean has written a royal triumph.' Juno Dawson, author of Clean. 'Scandalous, funny, and deliciously compelling!' Catherine Doyle, co-author of Twin Crowns. 'All hail this exquisitely twisty, delightfully queer mystery.' Chelsea Pitcher, author of This Lie Will Kill You. 'A compelling thriller that stays with you long after you've finished reading.' Kathryn Foxfield, author of Good Girls Die First. 'A twisty thriller that kept me guessing until the very end.' Lex Croucher, author of Gwen and Art are Not in Love. 'Addictive, compelling, and utterly delicious.' Simon James Green, author of Noah Can't Even.

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Reviews

Eileen

Not for nothing has Dean been awarded the 'King of YA thriller' crown and his latest, long-awaited novel, this time with a unique slasher twist, absolutely does not disappoint.

A dream 'end of A levels' party weekend for a group of perfectly privileged nepo teens in an opulent country mansion turns into a terrifying nightmare when they become sitting targets for a stop-at-nothing killer. As one person is evicted from the house to die every hour, people inside the house go missing too. No-one is safe, no-one knows who they can trust and no-one knows who will survive the night come morning.

In Bury Your Friends, Dean takes the locked room murder mystery trope and makes it his own, throwing absolutely everything at it. Everything from the 'Jesus was also a nepo baby' first line, to the opening murderer's confession, to the conflicting witness statements at the start and the deadpan chapter headings, is designed to hook in the reader - and it works.

The narrator is complicated and untrustworthy, characters turn against each other, reality TV-style, as their friendships unravel under pressure, but they feel very real. They're deeply flawed, entitled; spoilt little rich kids oblivious to their privilege, but we never quite want any of them to die.

The plotting is perfect, studded with red herrings, constantly twisting and turning, ratcheting up the tension almost unbearably as the clock ticks down to the end of the weekend and the serial killing spree continues.

Dean's background as a celebrity reporter shines though, illuminating the storyline with whipsmart dialogue and sharp social commentary about class, politics and privilege. It's scandalously gossipy, it's deliciously dark and it all comes together brilliantly in just over 300 fast-turning pages. The attention-grabbing title, impressive body count and surprisingly messy murders make this an irresistible read for even the most resistant reader. Book clubs will love debating whodunit as they read along. It'd be a crime not to buy several copies for your school library.

An equally twisted and murderous game is played out in Keep Your Friends Close by Cynthia Murphy. For a similarly scandalous killer thriller with a historical twist try A Heap of Rogues by Joe Heap.

336 pages / Reviewed by Eileen Armstrong, school librarian