Summer has us thinking about anything other than school, but what if we told you that there's a wild and dark academic murder mystery coming out soon that you are definitely going to be obsessed with? Oh, and also that it's written by none other than Jessica Goodman? You're basically putting on your detective hat on right now as you get ready to figure out the truth.

Cosmopolitan has an exclusive first look at Jessica's upcoming book, The Meadowbrook Murders, which raises the stakes for Amy, the newspaper editor at her school who now has to use her skills to try to solve the murder of her best friend and her boyfriend after they're both found in their dorm room. With Amy as the number one suspect, not only does she have to clear her name before the end of senior year, but she has to figure out what else they have been hiding from her.

Hoping for some more clues? You don't have to wait until it's official release on February 4, 2025. In fact, Here's the official book description from our friends over at G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers:

From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of They Wish They Were Us and The Counselors, comes a page-turning murder mystery set at a prestigious New England boarding school about the importance–and price–of telling the truth.

Secrets don’t die.

It’s the first week of senior year at Meadowbrook Academy. For Amy and her best friend Sarah, that means late-night parties at the boathouse, bike rides through their sleepy Connecticut town, and the crisp beginning of a New England fall.

Then tragedy strikes: Sarah and her boyfriend are brutally murdered in their dorm room. Now the week Amy has been dreaming about for years has turned into a nightmare, especially when all eyes turn to her as the culprit. She was Sarah’s only roommate, the only other person there when she died—or so she told the police to cover for her own boyfriend’s suspicious whereabouts. And even though they were best friends, with every passing day, Amy begins to learn that Sarah lied about a lot of things.

Liz, editor of the school newspaper and social outcast, is determined to uncover the truth about what happened on campus, in hopes her reporting will land a prestigious scholarship to college. As Liz dives deeper into her investigation, the secrets these murdered seniors never wanted out come to light. The deeper Liz digs, the messier the truth becomes – and with a killer still on campus, she can’t afford to make any mistakes.

The Meadowbrook Murders is a gripping mystery about the inextricable way power, privilege, and secrets are linked, and how telling the truth can come at a deadly price.

Oh, and we have some more evidence to submit! The first is the official cover which features a bloody skirt and tie together by a window.

Just what happened to Sarah and her boyfriend? Well, you can find out some more in our exclusive excerpt that you can check out below. Just make sure to pre-order The Meadowview Murders and also grab Jessica's past books as well!

An Excerpt From The Meadowbrook Murders
By Jessica Goodman

The Day She Found Them

Amy

Sarah wakes up before I do. She always has, since we started rooming together as freshmen. Her voice carries. A giggle or an ABBA song. A muffled whisper on the phone with Ryan. Goddamn Ryan.

I expect to hear her rasp this morning. The last day of senior welcome week.

But our suite is silent when I roll over, crust packed into the corners of my eyes. I pause and listen for her through the wall that separates our bedrooms, each so tiny they only fit a twin bed and a tall dresser. The school’s obvious attempt at creating intimacy, roommates pushed into shared common spaces to avoid our cramped rooms. It worked for Sarah and me, finding comfort on our ratty couch, bonding first over our love of soccer and then all at once over everything, slipping easily into the kind of friendship I wasn’t quite sure existed, the kind that was defined by knowing how the other’s breathing changes when they fall asleep, what might make them snort by accident from laughing too hard, how it sounds when they scream into a pillow.

I reach over to the space where Joseph was last night, but it’s cold now. I press my nose into the sheets, smelling his shampoo. Excitement churns in my stomach, but it’s short-lived when I remember what preceded Joseph’s visit, why I called him in the first place.

Sarah must still be mad about our fight. That’s why she hasn’t bounded into my room to wake me up and stand over my bed with a blueberry corn muffin, holding it hostage until I say I’m sorry for the things I said last night. But I’m not sorry. I should be the one who’s furious. She should be breaking down my door to apologize to me.

But Sarah won’t do that. It’s not her style.

I should take a cue from her playbook. Demand my own sorry, bribe her with a cherry chocolate chunk scone. But as soon as I think it, I know there’s no way. I’ve never demanded anything of Sarah, and I’m not about to start now.

There’s a deep ache in my chest telling me I’ve got to make things right. Every moment that passes is another moment of senior year that we’re at odds, another moment we don’t get to spend together on the same side.

Maybe if we talk now, sober, away from Ryan, Kayla, and the others, the warm cans of beer, the rank smell of the boathouse, she’ll understand.

My bare feet hit the floor and I rub my eyes as I swing open the door into the common room, my vision blurry from sleep. I bump into my desk before finding my way to the baby-blue mini fridge. Sarah had surprised me with it last week when we moved in. She had already filled it with our favorites—cans of Diet Coke, little glass pots of French yogurts, single servings of hummus and guacamole. Students aren’t supposed to have their own appliances in the dorms, but Sarah shrugged when I brought up the rule.

“No one stopped me.” She smiled and began explaining the color-coded system she put in place to keep the groceries organized.

I swing the door open and reach inside for a plastic cup of iced coffee, saved from yesterday’s outing into town.

It’s watery and too sweet. But it’ll do until I get to the dining hall.

I knock on Sarah’s door. “Sar? You up?”

No one answers.

“Cool silent treatment, but can we at least talk about last night?”

I take a sip from the straw, then another, everything around me a little fuzzy. The curtains are drawn, and the room is dark, but sun peeks through the corners. The digital clock below our TV flashes 8:00. Shit. I overslept. Senior Sanction is in an hour. A full day of welcome rituals reserved for our class, while we’re still the only ones on campus. Maybe Sarah left for breakfast already, didn’t wake me up as part of her I’m‑pissed‑at‑you campaign.

I pad back into my room and fumble as I call Sarah. The line goes straight to voicemail. Her recorded message rings in my ear and my shoulders tense. She ran a six-foot extension cord from the outlet near her door to make sure she could charge her phone right next to her bed while she slept, said she’d rather die than wake up with less than 20 percent battery.

“Sarah?” I call again, stepping into the common space.

That’s when I notice it.

The stench.

The rotten smell of iron. Pungent and everywhere, lodged in my throat. My nostrils. My stomach.

My heart pounds as I dial Sarah again, wait for a ring that doesn’t come. “I can’t come to the phone right now . . .” her voice bleats in my ear.

Suddenly I’m lightheaded, like I can barely breathe. Because once the rest of the room comes into focus, I realize it’s not only the odor that’s odd. There’s an overturned lamp. A thick red smudge caked onto the hardwood floor near the window. Another one on the chair next to Sarah’s desk.

I shake my head, trying to remember if the room was like this when I got home. I was drunk. Of course I was drunk. But Joseph wasn’t. We didn’t even turn on the lights.

I close my eyes, can picture us bumping into one another, laughing as our limbs tangled in the dark. We paused once, when Joseph noticed his paring knife, the one he takes with him to work. He had let me borrow it the day before when we were slicing peaches at soccer practice, and I had left it out as a reminder to return it to him. The mirrored blade caught a sliver of light from the moon, shining in the darkness. His initials carved into the solid wood handle. But when I look at the coffee table now, the only thing on top is one of Sarah’s photo books on Cape Cod, unopened, the edges thick and sharp.

I should call campus security. The Meadowbrook help line. I should call Kayla or Coach or even Dad. Maybe Joseph would remember. I should call him, too.

I don’t.

Instead, I take one step closer to Sarah’s room. I wrap my hand around her doorknob and twist. I don’t think twice about opening it.

I hear myself scream. Feel the coffee slip from my hand. My vision narrows to a pinprick as I stand there, staring. I can’t speak. Can’t do anything. My toes are sticky and cold, covered in milk, day-old coffee. My legs are like lead when I am finally able to move, stumbling into the hall. I see Mrs. Talbert, her wispy white hair in rollers. I say her name. Sarah. And then I fall to the floor as the others stream past me, finding what I found, seeing what I saw.

Their screams echo, sharp and piercing. I vomit on a stray slipper.

Someone shakes my shoulders, grabs my hand. But I don’t see them or hear them or remember who they are. Because all I can see—all I will ever see—is Sarah lying in her bed like she had been doused in crimson paint. Her dark hair matted, wet, and sticky, and her red toenails poking out from the bottom of the blankets.

People say that images get seared into your brain like a brand, but this one doesn’t. Brands are raised and bumpy. They scab, then scar. This scene isn’t a scar. What I’ve seen has altered what I knew to be true and good and beautiful. This image is now as much a part of me as my own pinky or my left earlobe.

It’s surprising, then, that it takes me so long to realize there were two sets of feet. Twenty toes, four ankles.

Sarah’s, of course, and, undeniably, Ryan’s.

Mrs. Talbert appears in the hall, her face a shock of white but her rollers still perky, perched on her head.

“They’re dead,” I choke out.

She nods, her mouth agape, and my world splits in two like a cleaved-open melon. Forever, my life will be divided into two halves, a before and an after, one with Sarah and one, horrifically, without.