Karen M. McManus – Author Biography
Early Life
Karen M. McManus is an American author who worked in marketing and communications before turning to fiction. She has said she always loved mysteries and wanted to write the kind of twisty, ensemble-cast thrillers she enjoyed reading.
Career
McManus debuted with One of Us Is Lying (2017) — a YA mystery in which five students walk into detention and only four walk out — which became a New York Times bestseller and a Peacock television series. She followed it with the sequel One of Us Is Next (2020), plus standalones including Two Can Keep a Secret (2019), The Cousins (2020), and You’ll Be the Death of Me (2021), establishing herself as one of YA’s most reliable thriller writers.
Major Works
One of Us Is Lying (2017) is her signature work.
Writing Style and Themes
McManus writes fast-paced YA thrillers with rotating viewpoints, cliffhanger chapters, and fair-play mysteries. Her recurring themes are secrets among friends, the gap between public image and private truth, and teenagers navigating adult-sized moral dilemmas.
Legacy
One of Us Is Lying became a defining YA mystery of its era — “The Breakfast Club meets murder” — and helped cement the YA thriller boom of the late 2010s.
