nevergoodstudy
When Elara Vance, a tenacious American scholarship student, arrives at the historic St. Valerian's College in Cambridge, she expects a quiet life of academic rigor. Instead, she steps into a gothic nightmare. Her roommate, the charismatic but unstable Cecily Moore, vanishes into the fog, leaving behind only a hollowed-out copy of *Paradise Lost* containing a cryptic diary known as the "Black Ledger."
Dismissed by the police and gaslit by the college's aristocratic Literature Chair, Professor Julian Thorne, Elara begins her own investigation. She uncovers the existence of the "Corvid Club," a decades-old secret society of elite students who believe that true art requires the visceral experience of death.
From the flooded tunnels beneath the city to the dizzying heights of the college spire, Elara must navigate a labyrinth of privilege, poetry, and murder. Racing against a powerful conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of the British government, she must decide how far she is willing to dig to bury the truth-before she becomes the next sacrifice.