THESE DEADLY GAMES

Sixteen-year-old Crystal Donovan wants to murder her nemesis Kira - in a video game tournament, that is. If she defeats her former best friend and wins the nationwide championship tomorrow, she'll score a million dollars and save her family from the bank foreclosing on their house - not to mention the glory of beating that vicious backstabber.

But Crystal's world turns upside-down when her phone pings with a video of her little sister bound and gagged, and a message from an anonymous sender: "Let's play a game. If you don't follow the rules, she dies. If you go to the police, she dies. If you tell your parents or anyone else, she dies. You have 36 hours." In her panic, Crystal completes tasks that get more and more bizarre. Steal an exam and slip it into locker 416 without getting caught. Call in a prank tip to the FBI. Bake brownies for her esports team. But locker 416 belongs to her friend and teammate Dylan, and he's suspended for cheating. A SWAT team raids another teammate's house, shooting and injuring his dad. And another teammate dies from an allergic reaction to the brownies. Now Crystal must spend 36 hours destroying her friends' lives or the person closest to her dies. THESE DEADLY GAMES is a young adult thriller that's a cross between I Know What You Did Last Summer and Nerve. Diana Urban is an author of dark, twisty thrillers, including All Your Twisted Secrets (HarperTeen) and These Deadly Games (Wednesday Books). When she's not torturing fictional characters, she works in digital marketing for startups. She lives with her husband and cat in Boston and enjoys reading, playing video games, fawning over cute animals, and looking at the beach from a safe distance.