An Empire of Lies

Welcome to 1854, Colonial South India.

Forging a British Lord's signature is a hanging offense. And faking a two-year betrothal to him....that's a death sentence. But to Suchi, it was just good accounting.

In the sweltering, jasmine-scented heat of 1854 Madurai, twenty-year-old Suchi is fighting a losing battle. With a dying father and no male heir, her ancestral Zamindari lands are targeted for seizure under the East India Company's ruthless Doctrine of Lapse.

To save her people and secure her elder sister Dhana's future, Suchi commits the ultimate fraud: she claims to be the secret fiancée of the region's most feared, absentee aristocrat, Lord Victor Robinson.

The lie is a masterpiece....until a black carriage rolls into her courtyard and the devil himself steps out.

Lord Robinson has returned from London, and he knows exactly what she's done. But instead of the gallows, he offers a chilling bargain. He needs an "in" with the local nobility to hunt a deadly smuggling ring, and Suchi is the perfect key.

Play the adoring bride-to-be, and live. Refuse, and burn.

As the line between hatred and obsession blurs against a backdrop of colonial galas and midnight treason, Suchi realises the greatest threat isn't the British Empire.

It's her, falling in love with the man she's supposed to riot against.