Spotlight & Giveaway: The Executioners Three by Susan Dennard

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Susan Dennard’s new release: The Executioners Three

From New York Times bestselling author Susan Dennard comes The Executioners Three, a mystery filled with rivalry, romance, best friends, and a gruesome curse that dates back centuries.

Freddie Gellar didn’t mean to get half the rival high school arrested. She’d simply heard shrieks coming from the woods, so she’d called the cops like any good human would do. How was she supposed to know it was just kids partying?

Except the next day, a body is found. And while the local sheriff might call it suicide, Freddie’s instincts tell her otherwise. So, like the aspiring sleuth (and true X-Files aficionado) she is, Freddie sets out to prove there’s a murderer at large.

But her investigation is quickly disrupted by the rivalry between her school and the school of the partying teens she got arrested. For over twenty years, the two student bodies have had an ongoing prank war, and Freddie’s failed attempt at Good Samaritanism has upped the ante. Worse, the clever—and gorgeous—leader of the rival prank squad has set his sights on Freddie.

As more pranks unfurl, more bodies also start piling up in the forest. But it’s the supernatural warning signs around town, each plucked straight from an old forgotten poem called “The Executioners Three,” that worry Freddie the most. She knows the poem and its blood curse can’t be real, but she’s quickly running out of time to prove it.

Because the murderer—or executioners?—knows she’s onto them now, and their next target just might be Freddie.

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from The Executioners Three 

The Quick-Bis was the closest thing to fast food in Berm. As such, it was always crowded. No matter that it only served a handful of items, nor that it was perpetually greasy and imparted all entrants with a scent like eau de biscuit. The cuisine was cheap, and as the name implied: it was quick.
It was also 100 percent verboten. Freddie’s mom never let her eat there— not even when the book club sometimes met there instead of the library.
More like Heart-Attack-Bis, Mom would say coldly whenever they drove by—and as much as Freddie always wanted to point out that one biscuit wouldn’t kill her, Freddie’s dad had died of a heart attack. So a general fury toward all things high-cholesterol seemed to be one of Mom’s coping mechanisms.
Which meant in the end, it was just easier to never ask for biscuits than to risk triggering some onslaught of Dad-shaped feelings that Freddie didn’t want her or her mom to have to deal with.
Originally, the Quick-Bis had been called the BisQuick. Until the actual
Bisquick company had quickly swooped in for trademark violation. So Mr. Bromwell, the owner, had simply rearranged the sign outside, and voilà. Problem solved. Quick-Bis it was. He even plopped a cement pilgrim out front with a sign that read Even First Settler Allard Fortin Gets His Biscuits Here.
Freddie’s mom hated that pilgrim even more than she hated the choles- terol. Allard Fortin wasn’t a pilgrim, Mom would always rant, and he wasn’t the first settler in the region—those were the Native Americans who lived fifty miles to the north. When the Fake Fortin (Mom’s name for him) became a frequent target for drive-by tippings by out-of-towners, she cheered. When Mr. Bromwell then chained Fake Fortin in place and changed the sign to Even the Ghost of Allard Fortin Gets His Biscuits Here, her scowls and rants resumed.
Freddie liked Fake (Ghost) Fortin. He was kind of cute, even if one nostril had broken in the last tipping.
As the Jeep pulled past him into the crowded parking lot, the rain was really dumping down. It forced Freddie, Divya, and Kyle to bolt at top speed into the buttery building of blue and yellow decor. Not that Freddie noticed the downpour. She was floating too high on Kyle’s smile.
Murder in the woods? Pshaw. Sweater that smelled like a barnyard?
Eh. Kyle’s hair looked so good all wet from the rain.
It wasn’t until she reached a booth by the window that Freddie’s eupho- ria finally cracked. Because sitting before her were the most popular kids from Berm High.
And every one of them was smiling at her.
Luis Mendez, his red letterman jacket almost as bright and gleaming as his smile, sat against the window. He had one arm slung casually around his girlfriend, Cat Nguyen, whose warmer brown skin contrasted with his paler skin. Cat’s mustard turtleneck, umber sweater vest, and perfectly matching plaid skirt looked exactly how Freddie wanted to dress (yet could never actually manage).
Across from Cat and Luis sat the crowning queen of them all: Laina Steward, a Black girl with dark, cool-toned skin and long braids. She wore fishnets and combat boots no matter the weather, carried nunchucks in her backpack (and knew how to use them), was a competition cheerleader and class president, and also listened to punk rock and regularly debated Mr. Grant on the merits of socialism in a democratic state.
Laina was not only the coolest girl at Berm High School, but the coolest girl who had ever lived. This was a widely known fact, and no one who had ever met her could argue otherwise.
“I found them!” Kyle beamed at his fellow nobility and snagged two free chairs from a nearby table.
“Them?” Cat’s smile faltered at the sight of Divya tucked behind Fred- die. “It was supposed to be just Gellar.”
“Who else did you bring?” Laina asked. Then her eyes slid past Freddie and her grin widened. “Divya, right?”
Divya choked softly, and Freddie turned, alarmed—only to find her best friend flushing furiously and looking as lost as Freddie had felt with Kyle.
“Yes, Madame Class President,” Freddie inserted. “This is Divya Sri- vastava.”
“Eep,” Divya agreed.
“That means hello, Madame Class President.”
Laina’s smile widened. “You don’t have to call me that—though I do think it’s funny.”
“President Steward, then.” Freddie smiled back. “Someone with your title deserves at least a little recognition.”
This earned her a full bark of laughter. Laina motioned to the empty booth seat beside her. “Sit, you guys.”
Freddie moved to obey; Divya, however, did not. Which left Freddie with no choice but to grab her best friend’s forearm and shove her into the booth. Then Freddie chose a newly added chair at the end.
Instead of sitting beside her, though, Kyle looked down and asked, “Want a biscuit? I’m gonna grab one.”
Now it was Freddie’s turn to eep and Divya’s turn to take action. “She
does. And I do too, thanks.”
With a nod, Kyle ambled off—and Freddie thanked Lance in her pocket. He was really on a roll today.
“Welcome,” Laina said, bracing her elbows on the table. “I’m sure you can guess why you’re here. After all, your record speaks for itself.”
My record? Freddie almost asked—but then it hit her. Of course. It’s a
small town, people talk. “You mean the arrests?” “Hear, hear!” Laina drumrolled the table.
“A stroke of genius,” Luis declared.
And even Cat thawed enough to say, “You knocked out two-thirds of their football team.”
“About that.” Freddie pushed her glasses up her nose. “There seems to have been a misunderstanding—oof.” Freddie’s shin erupted with pain, and when she glanced Divya’s way, the laser-beam stare was at maximum power.
“A misunderstanding?” Laina’s drumrolling paused.
Another kick. A harder glare, and Freddie was left with no choice but to say, “Erm, yes. You see . . . it wasn’t my idea alone, but Divya’s too.”
“Heyyyy.” Luis grinned Divya’s way, and Cat finally thawed completely—even offering Divya an approving once-over.
Laina just nodded like she’d known this all along. Divya blushed prettily.
“Should we wait for Kyle?” Cat tugged her purse over and unbuckled the clasp.
“Naw.” Luis waved her on. “Kyle can catch up.”
So Cat withdrew a worn, blue-bound book. In faded script on the spine, it read Official Log.
And in perfect synchrony, everyone dipped in low across the table. Even Freddie and Divya. There was a reverence in the way Cat held the book— and in the way she, Luis, and Laina gazed at its canvas cover.
“This,” Cat said dramatically, “is a log of every prank ever pulled by the Berm High seniors.”
Freddie and Divya both gasped in unison. Everyone in Berm knew about the prank war with Fortin Prep—because of course they did. There was no missing the spray-painted lawns or disrupted football games or dyed marching band uniforms or insert any other obvious prank here that happened each fall.
Yet for all that locals saw the effects of the prank war, no one ever knew who was behind them. It was like the secretest of secret societies.
“It all started when the bell went missing from the Allard Fortin mau- soleum in 1975.” Cat creaked back the cover on the log. “The Fortin stu- dents blamed us—even though we obviously didn’t do it, since the bell was found years later.”
Freddie nodded emphatically at this. She might not have known about the school prank war origins, but she did know heaps about the missing bell. After all, it had been her mom who’d first worked to get a replica made for the mausoleum. And then it had been her mom who’d found the original bell hiding in plain sight in the schoolhouse years later.
“Fortin Prep retaliated against Berm,” Cat continued, “by putting un- derwear on the school’s flagpoles.” She tapped the logbook, where sure enough the first line read, October 27, 1975: Fortin Prep stole BHS flags and put up lingerie.
“We of course had to respond.” This came from Laina, whose voice was suitably grave for discussions of such weight. “So we stole their mascot. A woodchuck named Bubba. Then they painted our football field, so we covered theirs in cat litter.”
“It has gone back and forth like that ever since.” Cat flipped pages. “And this journal contains twenty-four years’ worth of those pranks. Now we”—she stopped two-thirds of the way in—“are right here.” She tapped at the bottom of the page, where it now read, October 13, 1999: Freddie Gel- lar got half of Fortin Prep arrested.
“Oh,” Freddie exhaled, heart pattering ever so slightly. Her act of ter- rified conscience had landed her in the Official Log. She felt Very Exalted Indeed. In fact, for the first time since Wednesday night, she felt like she might have done a good thing.
“And when we graduate,” Luis inserted, “we’ll pass this log on to a few chosen juniors, just as the class of ’98 passed it on to us. So you see? This book right here is sacred, and now you have to swear to never tell a soul about it.”
Again, Freddie and Divya reacted in unison, each nodding. Each offer- ing a rapturous “We swear.”
Yet before Freddie could ask if the Prank Squad was sure they wanted to include a lowlife like her in their ranks, a figure moved into Freddie’s periphery.
Kyle, she assumed, and instantly her body flooded with heady flames. Until she realized no one was smiling. In fact, Cat was suddenly clos-
ing the Official Log, Laina’s teeth were baring, and Luis was puffing his shoulders to twice their size. Divya blinked Freddie’s way, so Freddie blinked her neighbor’s way.
To find that he was not, in fact, Kyle Friedman. This boy was a head taller than Kyle. Lankier too, and where Kyle’s hair was a dark chocolate shade, this boy’s was a dishwater blond combed into side-swept perfection. He also lacked Kyle’s tan, his skin instead a perfect match for Tom Cruise’s in Interview with the Vampire.
And the biggest difference of all: this guy wore a Fortin Prep uniform. A navy blazer with the school’s initials, a scarlet tie, and fitted khakis—all of it impeccably tailored and ironed.
He looked like he’d stepped right out of the TV. Not in a hot way, like Kyle, but in the I am a stereotypical bully way.
Freddie instantly disliked him. Especially because he was looking at her with recognition when she had no idea who he was. “Gellar, I presume?” He plunked into the seat beside Freddie and offered a hand. “Theo Porter.”
She didn’t shake his hand. She didn’t move at all except to mold her face into a glare. Clearly he was the enemy.
“Nice to meet you too.” He grinned a devastating grin, hand lowering as his other hand whipped up a soda cup. He took a long drag; it rattled. “No need to stop what you were doing on my account, friends. Continue, continue!”
Laina was the first to speak. “Why are you here, Porter?”
He batted his eyelashes—thick, pale, and framing blue eyes. “I just wanted to see the new prankster. She”—he motioned toward Freddie with his cup—“got a lot of us into trouble on Wednesday night. Myself included.”
He smiled again, and this time, there was a layer of respect to mingle with the mocking. “But listen.” He bent conspiratorially toward them. “If you’re going to escalate things over at Berm High, then we will gladly esca- late things on our end. Just be warned: we don’t pull our punches.”
“Bring it,” Luis snarled while Laina intoned, “We. Will. Crush you.” “You sure about that?” Theo’s eyebrows bounced high. “There’s still
time to say you’re sorry . . .” His eyes flicked to Freddie’s.
And this time, she was smart enough not to blurt out It was all a mis- understanding!
Divya clawed a warning on her thigh anyway. Or maybe that was a claw of solidarity. Either way, Freddie didn’t need it. Theo Porter made her lungs expand with heat, and there was an odd rumbling happening in her gut. Part fury, part . . . part something she didn’t recognize.

Something that prompted her to declare in her primmest, most unfazed voice: “I hope you know, Mr. Porter, that soda is not a balanced breakfast. You might consider orange juice. I’m told they sell it here.”
To her surprise—and seemingly to his—he laughed. Just a punch of air, but a laugh all the same. He pushed to his feet. “Great.” He knocked the table. “So glad we had this talk.”
Then without another word, Theo Porter shoved into the crowd and disappeared.
For several long seconds, no one at the table spoke. Then everyone erupted at once. Did he see the log? How does he know we’re the Prank Squad? Well, now we know he is on the Fortin squad. What a jerk. I hate his guts. I hate his face.
“Sorry it took so long.” Kyle popped out beside the table, a full tray of biscuits in hand. “There were a ton of Fortin Prep kids in front of me ”
Kyle’s precious face bunched up. “Why is everyone so pissed?”
As Cat explained what had happened, the crew slid out from the booth. It was time to get to school; Divya and Freddie would have to eat their biscuits in the car.
Unfortunately, Quick-Bis was really crowded now, and Freddie lost
Divya on her way to the exit. She arrived there with Cat instead, and while Freddie held open the door, she gazed covetously down at Cat’s shoes (knee-high riding boots that would never fit over Freddie’s calves). Freddie was fighting so hard to keep the envy off her face that she didn’t notice the giggles coming from above as she let the door swing shut. It wasn’t until someone barked, “NOW!” that she finally looked up.
And straight into a bucket of water.
She screamed. Cat screamed. The water connected. Both girls were si- lenced by cold, cold, cold, and wet, wet, wet. It was a veritable dunking booth and made the drizzle from grumpy clouds seem a mere annoyance.
As if that wasn’t already bad—and wet—enough, Fortin Prep students erupted from cars with water guns.
Luis launched from the Quick-Bis, bellowing like a bull. He was com- pletely unconcerned by the water—and Laina, who followed a split second behind, also didn’t care. Even better: she had her nunchucks.
That sent the Fortin students dispersing.
Except now Divya was shouting a warning, and when Freddie spun around, it was just in time to see Theo darting away from Cat. He had a blue book gripped in his hands.
“I got it!” he crowed, and before anyone could chase him, the Fortin Prep kids doubled down on their attack.
This time, it was water guns and water balloons. And this time, two
trucks squealed out of the parking lot before anyone could fight back. Soon enough, all of Fortin Prep was gone, leaving Freddie and the Prank Squad shivering from the cold.
And also from an unquenchable, bone-deep rage.
Laina was right, Freddie decided while she crawled miserably into Kyle’s front seat. We will crush those Fortin Prep kids.

Excerpt. ©Susan Dennard. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: 1 finished copy of THE EXECUTIONERS THREE – US only

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Meet the Author:

Susan Dennard is the award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Luminaries trilogy, the Witchlands series, and many more books and tales beyond. Her stories have been translated into tens of languages all over the world. Before becoming an author, she got to travel globally with her M.Sc. in marine biology. She also runs the popular newsletter for writers, Misfits & Daydreamers. When not writing or teaching writing, she can be found playing dress up with her daughter or mashing buttons on one of her way too many consoles.

*The beautiful hardcover edition will include designed printed edges.*

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250334664/theexecutionersthree/