The dream became a nightmare.

The weekend in Mexico sounded like a dream vacation. Four guys, five girls - and a gorgeous oceanside mansion all to themselves. It should have been perfect.

Except nothing was going the way they'd planned. There was the girl upstairs fighting for her life. The phone lines that went dead. And the explosion in the garage that could have killed them all.

But not even that prepared them for what happened next. Because while they were getting some sun, someone else was getting revenge - and the terror wouldn't stop until the weekend was over.

Dedication: None.

First Published: 1986, Scholastic

Cover Artist: Unknown (Scholastic), Paul Davies (Hodder)

Trivia: Pike's second (and final) novel for the Point Horror franchise

This book's original title was Sweet Hemlock, but the publisher changed it.

Pike Speaks: "Immediately after buying Slumber Party, Jean asked for another book and I sat down to try and top what I’d just written. Once again I tried to isolate my characters. That was playing it safe. I was not sure how to scare people who were not isolated. So I set up another weekend away from the parents. Jean believed strongly that adults should not play a major role in YA books. At the time she was probably right, but later I tried to move away from that rule. Anyway, I had a friend from high school named Candice who was on dialysis and who was also blind. I can’t recall what triggered her condition but we became better friends ten years after high school, and it was she who inspired me to use the idea of having a main character with failed kidneys. Like the character in Weekend, Candice was hoping for a transplant but sadly she died before she could get one.

"I was excited when I came up with the idea of having a long lost brother show up to rescue the sick girl, but what I really liked best about the book was the characters. Sol, Shani, Park -- I loved writing their dialogue scenes. It’s interesting that the characters in Weekend are more developed than in my next book, Chain Letter. But I was never happy with the snake scene at the end, and wanted to fix it. My agent and editor loved it, however, so I let it go.[...]

"I wrote it in my parent’s house." (Source)