Gateway Reviews

WE WON'T ALL SURVIVE Mercy Gray is a hero. Or that's what they all say. When she got caught in the crossfire of a mall shooting, she helped save lives. And she bears the souvenirs: a bullet fragment still lodged in her back, a mountain of medical debt, and the guilt of not listening to her sister's concern about the "sweet" boy next door. And the guilt, too, of draining her sister's college savings to help pay for her hospital stay. When billionaire influencer Damien Dare decides to start a brand new survival competition, he reaches out to Mercy. Who better to compete in a survivalist reality show than an actual survivor? And when she sees the prize money on the line, she can't exactly say no. Even if her sister wants her to. But when Mercy arrives to the off-grid old mining town Dare bought for the show, something seems... off. There are no cameras around, for one. No crew to meet Mercy and the other contestant...

LOVE UNMASKED Traveling to Venice with her art and architecture class is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Evie Whitmore. She can't believe she's going to the city of gondolas and crumbling palazzos. She can't believe she's setting foot in the city that inspired her absolute favorite fantasy series of all time, Elven Realms. Not that anybody knows about that last bit. Nobody can know. It's not like being a fantasy nerd is cool or anything. But Evie knows keeping her secret nerdiness under wraps will be hard. Because Venice didn't just inspire Elven Realms. It also hosts a secret speakeasy night club for fans. A club Evie is determined to locate, handmade costume for the elven masquerade included. When she almost gets caught sneaking out the first night in Venice, Evie is saved by a dashing masked stranger... who is also looking for the Elven Realms club. And when they don't find it the first night, they agree t...

LEAVING THE STATION The slowest possible way to get from New York to Seattle is via passenger train. Which is why Zoe's settled on this means for getting home for Thanksgiving break. Her life is falling apart around her. College isn't going well. And she kinda, sorta doesn't want to talk about the fact that she's not coming back to finish out the semester. Not until she has to. With only spotty reception for the next few days, Zoe's happy to unplug and ignore the questions of her parents, of her not-so-close college friends, and of her brand-new ex-boyfriend (and the fact that she has an ex-boyfriend is the biggest shock of all). But for now, Zoe can forget all of that. And meeting Oakley makes that easy. Oakley is the exact opposite of Zoe. She's cool. She's hot. She's self-assured. And she's wickedly smart. They hit it off right away. But Zoe isn't the only one looking to outrun her problems on this...

PRETTY GIRL COUNTY Prince George's County produces exactly one type of girl: designer clothes, custom pink cars, fancy gated community cookouts. Girls exactly like Reya Samuels. Sure, Reya might work hard, but she can get pretty much anything she wants when she wants it. Which is absolutely not how Sommer Watkins's life works. Sommer is from Seat Pleasant, which doesn't come with cast iron gates around bougie mansions but cast iron bars on the windows. Her neighbors are struggling to make ends meet. Sommer hustles every day to help her dad's bookstore stay afloat and to save the money she'll need to go to the college of her dreams, Spelman. The fact that she and Reya go to the same school is due to scholarship, nothing else. But Sommer and Reya used to be best friends. Back when Reya lived in Seat Pleasant, too. Before her mother's law career (and reality TV stardom) took off. And now that Reya's been waitlisted f...

THE L.O.V.E. CLUB "Has anyone in history ever truly understood a teenage girl in crisis?" Three years ago, Elle disappeared from Calendula, shattered the friend group she left behind. Without the "E" to keep them together, the L.O.V.E. Club broke apart. Liberty and Vera moved. O was left behind, crushed by the weight of her grief, her abandonment, her... confusion? Because she doesn't really remember the details of what happened. Because she can't. But with senior year on the horizon, Liberty and Vera are back. And something wants these girls together again. Pulled back to the hangout where they used to stay up late playing video games, these girls meet to find a game waiting for them, already loaded on the console. An impossible game. A game created by Elle. A game that doesn't give them a chance to decide before dragging them in to play. THOUGHTS I...

PREDATORY NATURES When Lara Williams is offered the chance to spend her gap year working on a luxury train, she jumps on it. She needs to get away, from her life and her mistakes. She needs a chance to reinvent herself, and there's nothing like getting paid to travel. Unfortunately, her ex-friend Rhys also got the job. Which Lara doesn't know until they bump into each other on the train. Until it's too late. Even with the Rhys complication, the train is everything Lara could have hoped: a luxe escape from her routine, demanding customers and all. But when the train pulls into a dark station on the first night of the journey to let on two strange passengers (and attach the two mysterious carriages they insist on traveling with), things take a turn for the... botanical? Because these carriages are full of rare and beautiful plants, as rare and beautiful as the extremely odd (and extremely wealthy) siblings who have come aboard with...