The Anatomy of a Perfect Murder

By Ashlea Stannard

"You were the one who got away.
Now he's coming back for you."

Breakwater Bay is a town built on secrets - and Ariadne Hastings knows them better than most. Eleven years ago, her life was erased, rewritten from the beginning, and Addie doesn't remember any of it.

Now, nine girls have vanished.
One by one. Year after year.
And Addie is the thread that ties them all together.

When the body of the first girl, Tillie Hope, washes up on the shoreline, Addie is pulled into a mystery darker than she ever imagined, plagued by a psychological connection to the girls, a pulsing static in her head that speaks to her, and strange dreams that feel real.

Together with Lucas Kumar - whose sister Leila vanished five years ago - Addie begins to untangle a web of obsession, silence, and revenge. But every clue brings them closer to a truth they may not survive. Because the girls were chosen for a reason, and Addie's name was always meant to be next.

As secrets unravel - in a ballet studio tucked behind closed blinds, an abandoned asylum crumbling on the cliffs, a missing girl's chatroom filled with riddles - Addie must confront not just the man behind it all, but the history that made her.

And when the truth finally breaks through, nothing will be the same.

Gripping, poetic, and painfully human, The Anatomy of a Perfect Murder is a young adult small-town murder mystery-thriller, about trauma, girlhood, memory, and the monsters we were never supposed to survive.
Perfect for readers of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, Sadie, and We Were Liars, this is a thriller that asks:

What if the perfect murder was never meant to be solved?

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0F59KNN2R
• ISBN13: 9798397385305
• Release Date: April 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 458 Pages
• Weight: 0.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.0" x 8.0"