In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead

Six friends.

One college reunion.

One unsolved murder.

A college reunion turns dark and deadly in this chilling and propulsive suspense novel about six friends, one unsolved murder, and the dark secrets they’ve been hiding from each other—and themselves—for a decade.

Ten years after graduation, Jessica Miller has planned her triumphant return to southern, elite Duquette University, down to the envious whispers that are sure to follow in her wake. Everyone is going to see the girl she wants them to see—confident, beautiful, indifferent—not the girl she was when she left campus, back when Heather’s murder fractured everything, including the tight bond linking the six friends she’d been closest to since freshman year. Ten years ago, everything fell apart, including the dreams she worked for her whole life—and her relationship with the one person she wasn’t supposed to love.

But not everyone is ready to move on. Not everyone left Duquette ten years ago, and not everyone can let Heather’s murder go unsolved. Someone is determined to trap the real killer, to make the guilty pay. When the six friends are reunited, they will be forced to confront what happened that night—and the years’ worth of secrets each of them would do anything to keep hidden.

Told in racing dual timelines, with a dark campus setting and a darker look at friendship, love, obsession, and ambition, In My Dreams I Hold A Knife is an addictive, propulsive read you won’t be able to put down.

Angela's Review:

This novel is dark academia, a genre I find interesting but definitely not one of my favorite genres. One of the things I do like about the genre is that usually I'm left thinking about the book after I finish it. This one was no exception.

The author used pretty effectively the strategy of ending chapters on cliffhangers. That meant that I was up very late finishing this book. The chapter would end on a cliffhanger and then because there were dual timelines and the story was told from multiple perspectives, it would be a couple chapters before we found out what really happened.

All of the characters at one time or another found themselves feeling guilty to some extent. This made the characters interesting, but it did feel a little long-winded at times. The characters were all flawed, though, and I loved the depth that provided. There wasn't one single villain because honestly none of them were good people. They all did bad things. I enjoyed this book. I gave it 4 stars.