When We Were Monsters

Author: Niven, Jennifer

Interest age: from c 13 years

Published on 4 September 2025 by Penguin Random House Children's UK (Penguin Books Ltd) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 400 pages
129 x 197 x 26 | 280g

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The compulsive new thriller from multimillion-copy bestselling author Jennifer Niven.

Eight students walk into an exclusive writers’ retreat, but only one will walk out with a life-changing opportunity to realize their creative dreams.

Effy is piecing together a story about the tragic betrayal that led to her mother’s death. Arlo hopes to publish a novel – but he’s also trying to start a new chapter with Effy after he broke her heart and ghosted her three years earlier.

Their mentor is Meredith Graffam, enigmatic writer, director and actress, whose compelling accounts of her own near-death experience on the same retreat decades before continue to spark controversy.

But this celebrated teacher is not all she seems, and her students gradually realize they are fighting for something much more primal than academic advantage. As Graffam’s unorthodox teaching methods push them past breaking point, they reveal their darkest secrets, take unthinkable risks and slowly start to turn on one another. But Graffam never expected they would turn on her . . .

The Secret History meets One of Us is Lying in the most gripping thriller of the year.