Corrupted Innocence

"I'm not a bird, Ares. And I don't need a cage."
"We'll see, little bird. We'll see."

Lyra Penhaligon is four-foot-ten of North Coast grit and sarcastic defiance. Moving from the rugged cliffs of Portreath to the shark-infested hallways of London's elite Blackwood Academy was never going to be easy, but she didn't expect to find herself in the crosshairs of the Trinity.

In the high-stakes world of Sixth Form, where the students are as sharp as their designer blazers and the teachers are bought and paid for, three boys rule the 17-year-old elite:

Ares: The leader. A genius with mood swings that flicker between terrifyingly kind and outright nasty.
Luc: The silent collector. He analyzes every weakness and burns with a dark, calculated lust.
Jensen: The joker. His upbeat pranks hide the most dangerous mind of the three.

They believe everyone is theirs to play with. But Lyra is a Cornish storm crashing into a London glass house. She doesn't bow, she doesn't break, and her ice-blue eyes hold a brand of chaos they've never seen.
Then there's Sloane. The girl who survived them. She knows the toxic "siege" of their past and the hollow ache they've been trying to fill. Sloane wants to save Lyra from the boys, but as the obsession deepens, all four of them begin to realize that Lyra might be the answer to a question they didn't know they were asking.

The boys want to own her.
Sloane wants to shield her.
But they're all about to learn that you can't tame the North Coast tide.

Welcome to Blackwood Academy. Where innocence is a lie, and the monsters play for keeps....