THE ONLY THING MORE DANGEROUS THAN A WRITER WITH A BLOCK… IS A WRITER WITH A SECRET.
Lara Beckett is a literary sensation. She is also a fraud.
Ten years ago, Lara watched her best friend fall from a roof and stole the manuscript that made her famous. Now, the money is gone, the fame is fading, and the “one-hit wonder” is desperate.
So when Arthur Morrigan, the reclusive Lion of Scottish Literature, summons her to his remote estate to serve as his literary executor, Lara grabs the lifeline. The job comes with a fifty-thousand-pound paycheck and a chance to reclaim her glory.
But Blackwood Lodge is not a sanctuary at all. It is a tomb.
Buried under the snow in the Highlands, the house is silent. Arthur is missing. And the only person home is his mother, Martha: a tiny, fragile woman with a floral apron and a terrifying obsession with “cleaning up” her son’s messes.
Martha knows Lara’s secret. She knows The Silent Girl was a lie. And she has decided that Lara is a weed in her son’s garden that needs to be pruned.
Trapped in a freezing cellar with no way out, Lara realizes that begging won’t save her. To survive the night, she can’t be the tragic heroine. She has to remember what she really is.
She has to become the villain.
Perfect for fans of Misery, The Plot, and Yellowface, this pitch-black psychological thriller explores the deadly cost of ambition and the lies we tell to survive.
