Elizabeth Klehfoth Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Elizabeth Klehfoth is a suspense and thriller fiction author from Elkhart Indiana, best known for her critically acclaimed bestselling title “All These Beautiful Strangers” published in 2018. Kelhfoth went to Chapman University where she got her creative writing BFA before she proceeded to Indiana University and graduated with a creative writing MFA. She would later go on to teach composition and fiction writing at Indiana University. She is currently living in Los Angeles. Her debut novel has been compared to “Gossip Girl” for its racy young adult themes that are full of secrecy and suspense. Klehfoth proved that she has mastered the essence of a mystery thriller in writing one of the most exciting young adult thriller fiction of our times.

“All These Beautiful Strangers” by Elizabeth Klehfoth is best classified as a mystery thriller. The novel follows the life and times of a teenage girl named Charlie Calloway who is offering her perspectives about her life in boarding school and her grief at the disappearance of her mother. Over the course of the novel, we come to learn about the events that led to her mother’s disappearance, even as Calloway comes to learn that persons she thought were her friends and allies were nothing of the sort. With such a cryptic name, the novel makes one question whether the persons you consider friends may just be uncaring strangers.

Elizabeth Klehfoth writes an intriguing novel that takes one in right from the very first page. The novel opens to a personalized business sized card addressed to the reader from the Knollwood Prep A’s, a secret group that holds significant sway over the running and happenings of the school. The card invites the reader to join the A’s. Much of the novel is about Charlie and the quest to become a member of the secretive A’s club. Getting into the A’s involves a series of initiation rituals and tasks that are meant to open her mind to a whole new world. The novel crosses the divide between reality and fiction by inviting the reader to join the A’s making the journey even more sinister. Over the course of the narrative the reader does learn that Charlie Calloway comes from a family of great importance and wealth, rather than your typical middle class American family. The novel is told from a variety of perspectives with Charlie narrating the story from 2017 even as her mother Grace offers a more dated perspective from the time before she became a Calloway. The novel thus provides interesting insights into the life of Charlie’s mother and the events leading up to her disappearance, while also taking the reader among the journey of discovery alongside Charlie, who is trying to find out what happened to her mother.

Klehfoth writes the novel with vivid imagination and an excellent writing style. She gives each character their own unique voice even when it comes to the least important characters. She goes really in-depth, particularly with regard to the grieving process of Grace, Charlie’s mother and Charlie herself. Klehfoth’s perfectly communicates how the way Charlie was brought up resulted in her almost resenting her mother, an aspect that has had a huge impact on her personality and attitude even in her adult life. The novel is well paced and takes time to progress, which makes it possible for the reader to know the characters and understand their motivations. The beginning of the novel only tells of the fact that Grace Calloway has gone missing and does not say if she was kidnapped, murdered, or decided to run away. Klehfoth manages to keep the possible paths open which makes the mystery quite an intriguing narrative. With the introduction of each new character the tension ramps up as we cannot help but wonder if they may have been involved in the disappearance of the Calloway matriarch, even if we still do not know whether she disappeared by choice.

“All These Beautiful Strangers” opens to a troubled Calloway family. It is the last day of summer when Allister Calloway realizes that Grace Fairchild his wife and mother to their seven year old daughter Charlie has gone missing from their lake house. She has gone missing without a trace leaving the real estate mogul and their daughter in a state of panic and turmoil. A decade later Charlie Calloway who is now a seventeen year old is yet to resolve the mystery of her mother’s disappearance and the dark legacy or the Calloway name. She is determined to put the past behind her and get on with her life at school. She attends a prestigious New England school named Knollwood, where she has ingrained herself with the who’s who of the school. Charlie has just joined an elite secret society in school known as the A’s, that have made a reputation for terrorizing their enemies, the school administration, and faculty. To become a fully-fledged member of the secret group, Charlie needs to play a high stakes and diabolical scavenger hunt named “The Game”. The ritual lasts the entire semester and by playing it Charlie risks her place at Knollwood, her reputation, and her most cherished friendships. Soon the dark events of the present and the past converge, and Charlie is afraid that she may not be capable of handling the terrible truth about her life, her school, and family life.