Falling in love with her first love wasn’t part of her plan. Helping her kill the Hollywood elite wasn’t part of his.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Good For Her by Tylor Paige, which releases on April 28th 2026.
Hollywood loves a comeback. Too bad Evie Reyes didn’t come back to play nice.
Five years ago, she watched her mother—an iconic Final Girl—die on the set of Simon Says. Now, she’s back on the same studio lot, cast as the lead in the reboot no one asked for. But Evie’s not here for fame. She’s here for revenge—and she’s got six names on her list.
Sebastian Shaw is Hollywood’s golden boy, a walking six-pack with just enough charm to disguise the fact that he’s a professional liar. He also happens to be Evie’s ex. When he finds out why she’s really back, he doesn’t try to stop her. He offers a deal: he’ll get her access to each of the men she wants to confront—in exchange for six chances to sleep with her.
No feelings. No strings. Definitely no dates.
As bodies pile up and the on-set accidents get harder to explain away, Evie walks a razor-thin line between staying alive and getting justice. And Sebastian? He might be the only person who sees her clearly—and the one person she can’t afford to trust.
This Final Girl isn’t just surviving—she’s stealing the whole damn show.
Chapter 1
Evie
The Cold Open
“Beep beep, Ritchie.” I turned toward the craft services table and picked up a bag of chips, pretending to intensely read the label. Sebastian, my best friend, stood beside me and turned his head and swore as his agent stormed across set to berate him for some imagined infraction.
“I heard that.” The tall brunette woman—wearing hot-pink heels and a matching pantsuit—stepped between us, her back to me. She crossed her arms over her enhanced chest. With the heels, she loomed over us both. All around, members of the cast and crew passed by either snickering in amusement or shaking their heads at Sebastian. He was always getting into trouble with Heather. “I know your guys’ little code. What are you eating?”
“Nothing, I was just walking with Evie,” he lied.
I rolled my eyes from behind her and stepped farther down to the popcorn machine. I grabbed a paper bag and filled it, tossing a scoop of M&M’s in between layers of popcorn. I closed the bag and shook it noisily while Sebastian continued to get yelled at for eating.
“I want you to do another workout tonight before you go to bed.”
“I was up at three this morning working out. Come on,” he protested. “One bagel isn’t going to kill me.” He reached for the table, but she slapped his hand away.
“Say that in ten years. If we want a lifelong career, which we do, you need to learn smart eating now. You eat that bagel, and I’ll haul a treadmill into your trailer to run it off between scenes.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, I would.”
Popcorn in hand, I stepped back and shifted to the side to watch the shitshow unfold. I’d warned him if he tried to sneak craft services, he’d get caught. Sebastian was Heather’s meal ticket. There was no way she’d risk her paycheck being short because he gained an ounce of weight.
His green eyes flicked to me, and he scowled. I popped a piece of popcorn into my mouth, and Sebastian stared at my hand as I mouthed, It puts the lotion in the basket.
We had lots of codes to talk to each other, all of them movie lines. What started off as a silly game on set of the first Simon Says movie turned into a secret language that helped us communicate around the adults. We were now on Simon Says Three, and the code was ever-expanding.
“Are you listening to me?” Heather snapped.
Sebastian turned his attention back to his agent.
“I got you a private screen test with the producers of that apocalypse movie. If you’re bloated, you won’t even make the shortlist.”
“It does this whenever it’s told,” I quipped.
Heather turned her head and shot me a dirty look. She knew better than to say anything to me. My mom would have her ass dragged off the studio lot and out of Hollywood by sundown.
Sebastian huffed loudly. “Yes, I get it. I’ll go drink some water and continue to starve. Go find someone else to bitch at.”
Heather stormed off, leaving us alone.
“Come on. I want to relax,” Sebastian muttered.
I refilled my popcorn bag, and together we headed to the trailer lot. Instead of heading to the one labeled Sebastian Shaw, we walked over to the one that said Lita Reyes—my mother’s. I climbed up the stairs and hurried inside, plopping down on the red velvet couch.
I didn’t have the same restrictions as Sebastian or Lita. I wasn’t an actress, just the child of one. However, I’d grown up on set and seen how badly Sebastian was treated. I often wondered, was it really worth the fame? But then he’d light up every time someone recognized him, or he saw his face on a billboard, so maybe it was. I wouldn’t know. No one ever paid attention to me.
“Did you hear that bullshit? A treadmill in my trailer!” He collapsed beside me, and I offered him the popcorn. He scarfed it down. “Ooh, M&M’s.” He smiled, leaned across the couch, and gave me a quick peck on the lips. “I was watching The Exorcist…”
Butterflies fluttered around my belly “It got me thinking about you.” It was our way of saying I love you. We’d yet to say the actual words, but the movie lines felt just as powerful. They were special and only ours.
Sebastian set the empty bag down and turned back to me, kissing me again. His smile, salty and butter-flavored, curled against my lips as our mouths met again. This time, our tongues touched, and in a flash, the mood shifted from playful to something else. He pushed me down onto the couch, his hands roaming under my shirt. A groan rose from his throat.
“I can’t wait for—”
The door flew open, and light poured in, causing us to bolt upright.
“Sebastian Shaw, I know you aren’t making a mess in my trailer.” My mother came in, hand on hip. She was in costume, a matronly fuchsia dress. Her black hair, normally soft and smooth, was curled and teased to resemble a woman from the eighties. Fake blood had been splattered all over her dress, face, and arms. She kicked off her thick pumps and huffed. “Don’t you have something better to do than make out with my daughter and get popcorn all over my expensive furniture?”
I blushed and glanced over—Sebastian was grinning ear to ear.
“Actually, I don’t, ma’am. My scenes aren’t for another hour.”
“Lita,” she corrected. She wagged a finger at us. “Just because you two are dating doesn’t mean I’m an old lady. And I got done early, so they’ll be calling for you soon, I bet.”
Her costume suggested otherwise, but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her. She was turning forty-nine this year, but in Hollywood, that was basically thirty.
I patted Sebastian’s knee and looked up at him, taking in just how cute he was. I was so lucky. I was living every teenage girl’s dream. I was dating Sebastian Shaw, the Hollywood bad boy. He was on the cover of magazines, movie posters, and had already won awards, at just sixteen. With his long, jet-black hair, green eyes, and chiseled jawline, he was easily the most handsome boy I’d ever seen. Even before he’d started getting tall and working out, I’d had a crush on him.
And he was in love with me.
“We have such sights to show you,” I said—our secret way of telling him to go with it because it would be worth it after. Which, in this situation meant prepare to shoot a scene. I squeezed his hand. “I’ll come see you after your scenes,” I promised. Now that my mom was done with hers, Sebastian would be called to set shortly, which meant, if we were lucky, he’d get out early. Reluctantly, he left, giving me one last lingering kiss before running out.
“You two are too cute,” my mom sighed as she peeled off her costume and headed to the shower. “Remember, I’m going to dinner tonight. I won’t be home.”
Oh, I knew.
“These are very important men, and I suspect I may be out all night, so you’ll need to catch a ride with Sebastian in the morning. I presume he’ll have snuck in to keep you company.” She shot me a look that was equal parts motherly warning and sisterly amusement. I cringed. She’d given me the sex talk the day before, and it was just as awkward as one could expect. Made worse by how pro-sex she was. I would have rather had the “stern-purity-bullshit” speech over the “lubrication-is-your-friend” one.
“Maybe.”
Despite being far too interested in my pending sex life, I loved the relationship between us. Lita Reyes had spent almost twenty years in the spotlight before deciding to have me. She claimed she wanted a best friend who, in her words, “was more beautiful than she could ever be, but just as smart.” While I wasn’t so sure about the whole “more beautiful” part, I appreciated the sentiment. My mother was a Latina bombshell. I could only be so lucky to look like her.
Maybe then I could star in movies.
From day one, I tagged along with her to movie sets. The cast and crews always treated me warmly, and many of them, as we continued on with the Simon Says franchise, came to feel like family. They played games with me in between their scenes, and I’d help them run lines. I came to the premieres, and they came to my birthday parties.
It was how Sebastian and I met. My mother introduced us on the first day, despite Heather arguing that the talent shouldn’t be distracted. We were the only kids on set for Simon Says, so the production company set up a trailer for us to attend school in. In between classes and filming, we kept each other company in our trailers, watching movies, pretending we were part of those worlds, and for a little bit—pausing the world we actually lived in. We bonded over existing in a world meant for adults. I’d never hung out with a kid my age before him, so he was special to me. And later, as we grew up on set… I became special to him as well.
Later that night, as my mother was heading out the door in a gorgeous red, skintight cocktail dress, she paused to kiss me goodbye and to remind me to lean on Sebastian.
“Hollywood is an awful yet magical place. If, for some reason, I’m not there, you two need to stick together.”
Her eyes bore into me for a beat longer than comfortable. I cocked my head, curious.
“Who are you doing dinner with again?”
She inhaled deeply and looked away.
“Six men who don’t deserve the privilege.”
I didn’t understand. Lita Reyes was like that sometimes. Blunt when she needed to be, cryptic when she wanted to be. I suppose it didn’t matter who these men were. Her tone and grim expression told me I should be so lucky to never meet them.
She hugged me one more time and left without another word.
I watched from the window as she walked down the long drive and stepped into a limousine. Then, I called Sebastian.
***
“Whoa.”
Sebastian rolled off me and collapsed onto the mattress. Our bare chests rose and fell in matching rhythm. My skin was slick with sweat, and my heart was beating so fast, like I was the Final Girl in one of the movies we loved so much. My body was reacting as if I’d just sprinted through the woods, only to be caught by the handsome serial killer, and I wasn’t mad about it. I’d be Sebastian’s final girl any day.
“Was it good for you?” He turned and propped his head up in his hand.
I rolled to face him. “I mean, yeah. It hurt, kind of. It hurt a lot when you first started, but after a while, I forgot about the pain.”
“They say that’s normal,” he offered, running a finger down the middle of my chest, between my breasts. “I love you so much, Evie. I’ve never loved someone as much as I love you.”
“I—uh…” Panic fluttered in my belly. We’d never said those words before. “I was watching The Exorcist,” I said lamely, too scared to use the real words. It almost felt like a jinx. If I confessed that I loved him, he’d for sure meet some beautiful actress, fall madly in love, and forget about me.
“Groovy,” he sighed, quoting Ash from Evil Dead, clearly disappointed. After a beat, he finished the phrase from The Exorcist. “It got me thinking about you.”
We fell asleep, his workout alarm rousing us. I joined him, as my mom had directed, noting that she had, in fact, not come home last night. We went to the gym, did our workouts, and then headed to the lot. He dragged me through the large bare sound stage, over to set. The only lights were the security lights above various exits, creating shadows across the already creepy set. I glanced around. We were in Sebastian’s character’s bedroom. He paused near his bed, tilting his head toward it and smiling wickedly at me.
“Movie fact—this is a real bed.”
I bit back a snarky comment but couldn’t contain the eye roll and excited butterflies in my belly.
“We’re early, but that just means we can sneak in round two. They say it hurts less and less each—” Suddenly, he stopped midsentence, and his eyes widened.
“Beep beep, Ritchie,” he whispered.
The use of our code, alone in the dark, made me freeze. Goose bumps rose on my arms as he reached for my hand, squeezing it tight. Something was wrong—very wrong. I turned slowly, fear sliding up my spine as I tried to keep my steps quiet. When I was fully facing the rest of the room, my blood ran cold. I snapped my mouth shut as I saw a shadow running away, pushing open the emergency door and fleeing.
“Evie, don’t look!” Sebastian shouted and tried to turn me away, but it was too late. I saw the body swaying from the scaffolding right where the man had just been. My entire mind went blank as I stared at the familiar dress and high heels.
And then, I screamed.
