Ten [Hardcover]

Gretchen McNeil (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 18, 2012

From Possess author Gretchen McNeil comes this teen horror novel inspired by Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Perfect for fans of Christopher Pike’s Chain Letter and Lois Duncan’s I Know What You Did Last Summer, Ten will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the very last page!

It was supposed to be the weekend of their lives—an exclusive house party on Henry Island. Best friends Meg and Minnie are looking forward to two days of boys, booze, and fun-filled luxury. But what starts out as fun turns twisted after the discovery of a DVD with a sinister message: Vengeance is mine. And things only get worse from there.

With a storm raging outside, the teens are cut off from the outside world . . . so when a mysterious killer begins picking them off one by one, there’s no escape. As the deaths become more violent and the teens turn on one another, can Meg find the killer before more people die? Or is the killer closer to her than she could ever imagine?

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up-A beach house, 10 teenagers, no parents, and the promise of a weekend-long party: friends Meg and Minnie embrace the exclusive invitation, despite the fact that neither of the girls is close to the host. But a storm is brewing on Henry Island. The wind is howling, the rain is pouring, and the local ferry won't be back until morning. Then people start dying. A creepy DVD warns the teens of their imminent demise, and red hash marks on the wall tally the deaths as the guests' guilty secrets are exposed and they're picked off one by one. In the end, it is up to Meg to save herself and figure out who is killing her friends and why. Though character development and motivation are a bit weak, McNeil's novel nicely parallels Agatha Christie's classic And Then There Were None (originally titled Ten Little Indians in the United States), and is likewise a quick-paced thriller full of half-facts and red herrings that take readers through the twists and turns of a deadly weekend. While it might not be considered an amazing teen mystery, among the numerous adaptations and stories that borrow from Christie's 1939 novel, McNeil's book holds its own.-Jennifer Miskec, Longwood University, Farmville, VAα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

After years of living on the fringes of the Seattle high-school social scene, Meg and Minnie are finally making a comeback. At an exclusive house party on a remote island with their mutual crush T. J., emotionally fragile Minnie is thrilled, but her protector, introverted writer Meg, is leery, and with good reason. As soon as they meet the other eight guests, things are amiss. The hostess never arrives. The only DVD bears an eerie, foreboding message. The electricity goes out. And then Lori is found hanging from the rafters. As the bodies begin to pile up and clues appear, Meg searches for the killer among them. In the esteemed tradition of teen horror fiction, Ten hits all the high notes: a stormy night, illicit liaisons, cut phone lines, suspicious disappearances, double-crosses, secret histories, and plenty of twists. Though most of the short-lived characters are one-dimensional by necessity, Meg is sympathetic and complex enough to cheer for as she pieces together the nightmare weekend and tries to escape alive. Grades 8-11. --Heather Booth

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Balzer + Bray (September 18, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062118781
• ISBN-13: 978-0062118783
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (114 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gretchen McNeil is an opera singer, writer and clown. Her YA horror POSSESS about a teen exorcist debuted with Balzer + Bray for HarperCollins in 2011. Her follow up TEN - YA horror/suspense about ten teens trapped on a remote island with a serial killer - was released September 18, 2012, and her third novel 3:59 - sci fi doppelganger horror about two girls who are the same girl in parallel dimensions who decide to switch places - is scheduled for Fall 2013. Gretchen's new YA contemporary series Don't Get Mad (Revenge meets The Breakfast Club) about four very different girls who form a secret society where they get revenge on bullies and mean girls begins Fall 2014 with GET EVEN, followed by the sequel GET DIRTY in 2015, also with Balzer + Bray.

Gretchen is a former coloratura soprano, the voice of Mary on G4's Code Monkeys and she sings with the LA-based circus troupe Cirque Berzerk. Gretchen blogs with The Enchanted Inkpot and is a founding member of the vlog group the YARebels where she can be seen as "Monday." She is repped by Ginger Clark of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Taut and Riveting Young Adult Thriller - A Must Read! September 18, 2012

By Stephanie Ward TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

'TEN' is a taut and riveting young adult thriller set on Henry Island - a private island off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. Meg and her best friend Minnie are excited to be invited to one of the hottest parties of the year, thrown by the most popular girl in school. When they arrive at the island, they discover that there are only ten of them on the island, instead of the huge crowd and party they were expecting. A storm hits Henry Island and they are suddenly cut off from the rest of the world and with no way out. Soon, people are dying one by one, there are strange red marks on the wall, and they don't know who to trust. Will Meg be able to survive the weekend until she can get off the island for help?

In my opinion, there are nearly enough young adult thrillers out there. With 'TEN', Gretchen McNeil has written a truly creepy page turner. The book is very well written and had me hooked from the very first sentence. I literally couldn't put it down until I finished it and found out who the killer was. The setting is a perfect place for the book - a secluded private island shut off from the rest of the world during a storm. The characters are original and have unique personalities and flaws - all which fit perfectly into the plot.

The way the story is writing is phenomenal. It starts out at a good pace, and then things just start accelerating until you have to find out what's going on. There are some incredible twists and turns that you don't see coming - which only add to the completely engaging storyline. Every piece of the story is perfectly implemented and works together to make a serious masterpiece of a thriller. I honestly can't say enough to show how amazing this book is and how much I absolutely loved it.... 'TEN' is by far one of the best thrillers I've read, and definitely one of the best books I've read in a long time. You don't want to miss this one! Very highly recommended!!

Disclosure: I received a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. Read more ›

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A page turner September 18, 2012

By ODell @ Book Twirps

Format:Hardcover

A house party on an isolated island. A raging storm. A mysterious DVD with an ominous message. A power outage. Ten teens trapped with no way to escape. And a dead body. It's the perfect set-up for a fun whodunit that would make Agatha Christie proud. In fact, it's pretty much a re-telling of her classic mystery And Then There Were None (Ten Little Indians), but for teens.

I was kind of a weird kid, I read pretty much anything I could get my hands on. I'll never forget reading a copy of Ms. Christie's book when I was no more than twelve years old. I was spending the weekend with my grandmother and I found a copy tucked away on a shelf in the basement. I curled up and read the book, hiding it from her whenever she would enter the room so she wouldn't fuss at me. Thus began my infatuation with murder mysteries and spurred my love/hate relationship with all things horror related.

When I first heard about this book, I was very excited. I loved Ms. McNeil's Possess, and I was excited to see what she would do with this. I wasn't disappointed. While I wasn't creeped out, or even surprised by the ending, it was still well-executed and well-written. I'm well above the targeted age range for this book, and I'm sure a lot of teens may not be familiar with the original, so they will probably find the twists and turns surprising.

The book is well plotted and follows the murder mystery format to a T: Introduce the characters/setting, a mysterious occurrence, a strange message, the first body is discovered, all hell breaks loose, fingers are pointed, red herrings abound and the killer is revealed with a twist. It's a tried and true formula that works well when executed properly and Ms. McNeil does a fine job....

While I did have a few problems with it (I thought the teens were a little too reluctant to face the fact that they were being hunted -- the clues were blatantly obvious to me), I realize that this may have had something to do with the fact that I've read a lot of mysteries over the years, so my version of "the obvious" may differ from others. I also didn't feel like I completely connected with any of the characters, but then again, that could just be me.

I would highly recommend this one to fans of mysteries/thrillers. Even if you don't like slasher movies, I would give this one a try. This book is light on the scares and blood. It's more about figuring out who the killer is and why. It's a quick read and an engaging mystery. Read more ›

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Comparing This to Christie's Classic Adds Insult to Injury! November 16, 2012

By Bradley Friedman

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Full disclosure: I'm not a teen but a high school teacher who loves good teen fiction and loves recommending good teen fiction to my students. I've also been a huge Agatha Christie fan since before I was a teen myself! AND THEN THERE WERE NONE was the first Christie novel I ever read, and it is certainly one of her best. To fall for McNeil's hook - ten teens trapped on an island with a killer - on the off chance that her mystery might at least have been inspired by the classic plotting and tone of Christie's work makes me feel doubly cheated. Finally, I just finished John Green's THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, which I loved, so maybe comparing a finely-written YA novel to this one made TEN seem far worse than mediocre.

In honor of this novel, let me count off ten reasons why you shouldn't waste your time or money:

1) PLOT: Without giving much away, there is nothing unusual or striking about the plotting of the mystery. References to Christie aside, this is just another example of those teen clique revenge stories so popular with R.L. Stine fans. It's not even a very good example of that! And as a mystery, it just doesn't work, since the murderer's "careful" planning and thirst for vengeance turns out to be pretty much a mess. At one point the killer brags about how long and carefully they planned their crimes. Then, when confronted by the fact that they made an essential mistake about who should be killed, the murderer essentially says, "Whoops! Oh well...."

2) CHARACTER: Aside from the two main female characters, (who are best friends for reasons that totally escape me since they actually seem to hate each other), there is virtually NO characterization going on. Most of the people in the book are either caricatures or barely sketched out.... You don't get to know any of them long enough or well enough to care about whether they live or die. I urge everyone to read Christie's original to see how it SHOULD be done!

3) ATMOSPHERE: You'd think that being trapped on a storm-wracked island with a homicidal maniac, watching the people around you die, might generate a few scares, a sense of loss or worry, something! But most of the time, the teens on this island seem barely phased by all the murders around them. They're more concerned about who went to the Homecoming dance with whom and whether or not the cute guy in the study will hook up with them. (You think I'm kidding?)

4) LANGUAGE: I really wanted to give this book the benefit of the doubt. I figured that author thought she needed to write in a more childish, simplistic style to appeal to a wider audience. I disagree with this, since authors like John Green, David Levitan, Phillip Pullman, and many others never seem to write down to their audience. But if the author was aiming for a younger reader - like middle school - what's with all the foul language and sexual situations? Four letter words abounded, people hooked up constantly, and everyone behaved so stupidly .... well, they had to in order for this killer to succeed, I guess. Frankly, I'm shocked that organizations like ALA Booklist gave this a good review.

5 - 10) Nah, I think I'm done. I'm not going to give book this any more of my time or energy. I know it's easy to play pocket critic on Amazon, and I apologize to Ms. McNeil or any of her fans who liked this book for my harshness. But I do love a good mystery and a well-written novel, and this book is neither. The mystery genre is very hard to bring off, especially in the YA market, where the amount of violence and the potential motives is more limited by the suggested age range of the readers. I'm open to suggestions for good teen mysteries; meanwhile, I'll stick with the adults and suggest that mystery lovers avoid TEN. Read more ›