There’s something about group travel—especially when you’re young and far from home—that heightens everything. The connections are fast, the drama is intense, and the stakes, whether you realize it or not, can be life changing. For me, it was a study abroad trip to Portugal, Spain, and Gibraltar at seventeen: whirlwind friendships, unrequited love, long hours on a tour bus, and at least one fellow traveler who drank too much and clearly needed help. We even had a retired singer who we realized – after my cousin recognized her from an old vinyl album of our grandma’s – had killed her husband decades before. And the “professor” who organized the trip? A con artist who scammed us out of a promised excursion to Morocco. Thankfully, no one ended up dead on that trip, but reading Sara Ochs’ This Stays Between Us brought a lot of that strange, charged energy back.
This sharply constructed thriller centers on two timelines: the “then,” when a group of students embarks on a month-long study abroad adventure in Australia, and the “now,” when the discovery of a long-missing student’s remains forces the group back together. From the beginning, there’s a sense that the friendships formed on the trip—particularly between best friends Claire and Phoebe—weren’t as solid as they appeared. And as we learn more about what happened on the trip, the facade begins to crack.
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