Book Title: MOST LIKELY TO MURDER
Character Name: Rick Hicks & Martina Lopez
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
Martina: What are you, my therapist? I’m not answering that question.
Rick: Sorry, she’s had too much coffee. It makes her bitey.
Martina: I’ll bite you.
Rick: sighs Her family’s great. My family, well, it’s just me, my mom, and my sister these days, and my uncle Vic. But they’re good. Our childhood –
Martina: I’m already bored with this question. Next!
What is your greatest talent?
Martina: All of my talents are great, none of which I can mention because it might implicate me in the court of law. Or get me suspended. Allegedly.
Rick: I’m a pretty good mechanic, but I think my greatest talent is saying things that I instantly regret.
Martina: Well, I never regret the things you say. They bring me joy.
Rick: They bring me mockery, mostly from you.
Martina: Loving mockery, Rick, but that’s what brings me joy.
Significant other?
Martina: groans Don’t ask him that or he’ll get all shmoopy about Nika Page.
Rick: Is “shmoopy” a word?
Martina: It is now. I just said it.
Rick: We are both currently single. I think this interview has made it clear why.
Biggest challenge in relationships?
Rick: Please refer back to my greatest talent.
Martina: Rick lacks confidence, so he never makes a move. Someday he will know his worth.
Rick: Aww, thanks, Teeny.
Martina: …or else.
Rick: Why is your love so aggressive?
Martina: shrugs
Rick: Maybe that’s your biggest challenge in relationships.
Martina: If they can’t handle it, they don’t deserve me.
Where do you live?
Martina: I live in the forest. In the laughter of children. Wherever a dream becomes reality, that is where I live.
Rick: And by that, she means Meadowvale, Washington.
Martina: I said what I meant, Rick.
Do you have any enemies?
Rick: Yes, Martina has a list.
Martina: It’s a mental list. I don’t leave evidence. And I mean, everyone has enemies. What I want is a good nemesis.
Rick: For your birthday I’m getting you a volcano lair and a white cat to pet.
How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place?
Rick: Well, we’re currently in Meadowvale High so…yeah.
Martina: I find high school to be pretty repellent.
Do you have children, pets, both, or neither?
Martina: Rick has a secret love child.
Rick: This is how rumors start, Teeny.
Martina: We have a dog. Rick has a van that’s kind of like a pet. It has fur. And a name.
Rick: My uncle still won’t tell me why he covered The Beast in faux fur. He gets a weird look on his face every time I ask, and I end up getting a lecture about drugs and peer pressure.
Besides studying, what do you do for work?
Rick: I work at my uncle’s garage.
Martina: I’m currently without employment.
Rick: She’s never quite recovered from working at Spudknucklers.
Martina: Sometimes in the middle of the night, I can still smell the deep fryer.
Greatest disappointment?
Rick: Myself.
Martina: Rick’s answer. punches his arm Love yourself!
Rick: Sorry! I take it back! I’m the best! That’s assault, you know.
Martina: Sorry, but come on, dude. I just want you to love you as much as I love you.
Rick: Or else?
Martina: Or else.
Greatest source of joy?
Rick and Martina point at each other
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
Rick: You’re looking at it.
What is your greatest personal failing, in your view?
Rick: I lack confidence.
Martina: Are you implying that I have failings?
What keeps you awake at night?
Martina: Before this year, it was mostly questions like, “what hair color do you put on your license if you’re bald?” and “are birds real?”
Rick: Mostly Martina’s texts about whether birds are real, but also mentally replaying the things I said all day and regretting them.
Martina: But now it’s mostly things like, “Who’s trying to kill us?” and “I don’t want to die.”
Rick: Hard same.
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
Rick: The whole “who is trying to kill us” and “are we going to die?” thing.
Martina: Yeah, that’s pretty pressing.
Is there something that you need or want that you don’t have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
Martina: To stay alive, graduate, and go to college, in that order.
Rick: A date with Nika Page.
Martina: Seriously? How about the “staying alive” part?
Rick: I felt like that was implied.
Why don’t you have it? What is in the way?
Martina: A murderer, time, and a scholarship, also in that order.
Rick: Myself? Possibly Nika Page’s very reasonable high standards.
Martina: Dude.
Rick: What?
Martina: If she doesn’t see that you’re a catch, she’s not as smart as I thought.
Rick: Aw, I love you, too, Teeny. hugs Martina
Martina: Can we go get more coffee?
Rick: Absolutely not.
MOST LIKELY TO MURDER by Lish McBride
Yearbook superlatives turn deadly in this darkly funny young adult thriller.
The rumor mill has never been kind to Meadowvale High seniors and best friends Rick and Martina, labeling them outcasts (sure), stoners (no comment), and pranksters (okay, this one’s fair). But for the most part, they have successfully flown under the radar.
That is, until they’re targeted in a prank that replaces yearbook superlatives with grisly forecasts of student and faculty deaths. Sure, Rick and Martina were never going to be voted Most Likely to Succeed . . . but Homecoming’s Cutest Corpses? Thanks for the cute, no thanks on the corpse.
At first, the senior class is annoyed by the prank. But when the body of Mr. Stephens, Most Likely to Sleep with the Fishes, is dredged from the bottom of a lake, suspicions arise that something truly sinister is going on. And as more people turn up dead in the exact ways the yearbook promised, it becomes clear someone’s killing off the student body one page at a time.
Now Rick and Martina must find the yearbook killer before their vicious superlative comes true. So much for surviving high school without drawing attention. Now Rick and Martina just want to survive.
For fans of Holly Jackson, Karen M. McManus, and Danielle Valentine!
Young Adult Suspense [ Penguin, On Sale: March 24, 2026, Paperback / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9780593860403 / eISBN: 9780593860397 ]
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About Lish McBride
Lish McBride is a writer, former bookseller, and amateur goblin living in the PNW. In the crime of the century, she tricked not one but two universities into giving her degrees, ending up with an MFA from the University of New Orleans. (They cannot have it back, either, as she has invoked the ancient law of “no backsies.”) When she is not writing or reading, she’s usually hanging out with her family and friends…and talking about writing or reading. Her ultimate dream is to have her own castle and one of the libraries with the wheely ladder.
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