Seven All Alone by Kirsty McKay

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✦ BLURB ✦

Maggie Atkins will never forget what happened in that cave ten years ago when she and six other elementary school kids were kidnapped by their bus driver and kept captive. She will never forget that her friends left her alone to escape, or the image of her kidnapper falling to his death, but she has done her best to put the ordeal behind her and move on.

Her past catches up with her when she's forced to go on a school trip to the mountains with the very same people who abandoned her, and only a stone's throw away from the scene of her kidnapping. She's determined to suck it up and get through it though since it's only one night of her life. But then a brutal storm changes everything and separates her group from their chaperone. With no phones and a limited food supply, the group strategizes how they can survive the elements and make it back to safety.

Then they realize there is someone else on the mountain. Someone who knows what really happened all those years ago. Someone who wants them dead and is willing to take them out one by one. Maggie thought she'd already survived the worst thing she would ever go through--she was wrong.

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A chilling, high-altitude locked-room thriller where the past and present collide in deadly ways.

Pre-Reading Thoughts

I’m drawn to thrillers that balance suspense with emotional depth, and this one’s premise — a school trip gone terrifyingly wrong, but with the psychological weight of a past kidnapping — immediately had me intrigued. It felt like a story designed for long, stormy nights and, honestly, I was ready to hide under the duvet while reading.

Post-Reading

As I thought...
Dark, tense, and impossible to put down. McKay delivers on the thriller promise: the mountain setting, stormy weather, and isolation ratchet up the stakes perfectly. Maggie’s fear and mistrust of her former friends feels utterly real, and the past haunts the present in ways that make every decision carry weight.

It surprised me by...
How sharply it combines psychological suspense with survival thriller. The mountain itself becomes a character — treacherous, unpredictable, and beautifully described — while the real danger lurks in human choices. The killer’s reveal is gripping without ever feeling cheap, and the balance of tension and character insight had me alternating between panic and admiration for Maggie’s grit.

MUSIC PAIRING

• 🎵 Featured Song: “Running With the Wolves” by AURORA – untamed, tense, and urgent.

• 🎶 Vibe Album: Storms by Lisa Gerrard & Patrick Cassidy – haunting, ethereal, perfect for mountain isolation.

• 🎧 Artist Recommendation: Banks – dark, atmospheric, and emotionally layered.

Vibe Check

• Colour palette: Slate greys, icy blues, shadows of deep forest green

• Soundtrack: Howling wind, cracking branches, footsteps in snow

• Season: Mid-winter storm, when daylight is fleeting and the world feels sharp

• Mood: Tense, anxious, unrelentingly suspenseful

• Scent: Pine resin, damp earth, and the tang of snow

Tarot Pull

The Moon – Nightfall Tarot

Hard edged, bathed in shadow and hiding secrets in every shadow. Maggie’s past and present fears dominate the narrative, much like the Moon’s illusions and treacherous path.

For Fans of:

• Books: One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus, Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

• TV/Movies: The Lodge, And Then There Were None adaptations

Seven All Alone publishes on the 2nd December, 2025. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.