Author Interview: Keep Your Friends Close by Cynthia Murphy

Cynthia Murphy has mastered the art of the gasp-worthy YA thriller, and her latest, Keep Your Friends Close, is no exception. Set in the glittering yet sinister halls of Morton Academy, the novel dives into ambition, morality, and just how far people will go to secure success. With a morally complex heroine, secrets lurking in every corner, and twists that push the boundaries of dark academia, Keep Your Friends Close cements Cynthia as a go-to author for readers who love their thrillers sharp, stylish, and a little bit deadly. Check out our interview below and pick up Keep Your Friends Close, out now!

Keep Your Friends Close

by Cynthia Murphy
on September 2, 2025
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An explosive dark academia thriller set in the world of the BookTok sensation Win Lose Kill Die, where secret societies and lethal ambition run the show.
Chloe Roberts is on top of the world. After a stellar first year at the prestigious Morton Academy, she’s a shoo-in for Head Girl and a coveted position in the school’s secret society, Jewel and Bone. But her dreams are shattered when her best friend, Nikhita Patel, unfairly snatches the top spot—and steals Chloe's boyfriend at the same time.
Heartbroken and humiliated, Chloe discovers a shocking truth: Jewel and Bone isn’t as secret as she thought. The rest of the school despises the Jewels, and there’s even a “Book of Crime and Punishment” cataloging their misdeeds. Things take a very dark turn when the names in the book start to correlate with murders of Jewel and Bone members on campus. Suddenly, anyone could be a suspect.
And now, Chloe must navigate a web of lies and deceit to get to the bottom of this twisted game before she’s next on the kill list.
Keep Your Friends Close is a gripping thriller that explores the dark side of ambition, loyalty, and the lengths people will go to claim what’s theirs.

Interview with Cynthia Murphy

Morton Academy feels like its own character, beautiful but rotten underneath. When you were building this world, what was your guiding question about what secrets an elite school like this might hide?

The question I kept asking myself was ‘how far would someone go to have it all’? I really wanted to explore the dynamics of people who have never had much of anything suddenly being given this chance to achieve ‘greatness’. Surely there would be students who felt they deserved great levels of wealth and success and would therefore do anything to achieve it? And because it’s one of my novels, anything very much means murder…

Chloe is ambitious, flawed, and maybe even a little dangerous herself. What line did you draw between her being a survivor and her becoming part of the system she’s trying to outsmart?

Chloe starts off as a certified mean girl and has this really great arc where she has to face her flaws in order to make new friends. She becomes very self-aware and that helped with both her likability and the way she gets herself out of a series of sticky situations. One thing she does retain is her ‘I deserve to succeed’ mentality, which means that she could still go either way. I really enjoyed writing a character on that knife-edge of morality – she’s constantly torn between doing the right thing for everyone else versus the right thing for herself.

You’re known for twists that make people gasp out loud. Did you ever plan a twist for this story that felt too dark, or was there a moment you surprised yourself with how far you’d let Chloe go?

Not really, as I do like to push it with my situations and characters where I can. There is one particular scene that came about because I thought ‘okay, what would be the worst place to wake up at Morton Academy’ and it was so outlandish and gruesome I didn’t know if I’d have to cut it, but happily it made it into the book! Logistically I had to rewrite it a few times to get all the pieces to work, but it remains one of my favourite parts of Keep Your Friends Close.