From the back cover:
"The weekend in Mexico sounded like a dream vacation. Four guys, five girls - and a gorgeous oceanside mansion all to themselves. It should have been perfect.
Except nothing was going the way they'd planned. There was the girl upstairs who was fighting for her life. The phone lines that went dead. And the explosion in the garage that could have killed them all.
But not even that prepared them for what happened next. Because while they were getting some sun, someone else was getting revenge - and the terror wouldn't stop until the weekend was over."
Review:
The first time I read this book is when I checked it out from the local library over 20 years ago. The cover in particular always stuck with me. It's very simple yet ominous, and the tagline is classic: "Saturday they worked on their tans...By Sunday they were working on staying alive..."
For the longest time I was on the look-out for this book at thrift stores and garage sales. But I could only find it with the crappy "updated" cover art, so of course I wasn't gonna purchase it. I finally had to break down and get it off Ebay.
A group of friends with a dark event from their past is something Christopher Pike used more than a few times throughout his career. In fact, it's a recurring theme with many YA horror novels. The difference is, Pike is a master with this particular plot.
The gathering of friends at an isolated location makes for another fun premise, and the mystery of what happened in the past is riveting. At 230 pages the book is a tad on the long side. Things also get a bit goofy at the end when all is revealed, but these are minor nitpicks. A must-read.
4 out of 5
