I came to Thornveil to bury my grandmother.
I stayed because the dead would not let me leave.
The ghosts had always been there-drifting through our bayou cottage, hovering at the edges of my vision. I thought everyone could see them. I was wrong. And when my grandmother drew her last breath, every spirit she had been holding snapped to me like a chain pulled taut.
Thornveil Academy rose from the cliffs of coastal Maine like a tomb with a heartbeat-a Gothic fortress of gargoyles, iron gates, and stained glass bleeding death rites, where witches and wizards learned necromancy from ghosts and four ancient bloodlines ruled the four houses. I arrived with no house, no allies, and no place at any table. The first scholarship student in a century.
They made sure I knew I did not belong:
Dorian Ashworth-the cold-eyed heir of House Ashworth who humiliated me in front of the entire school and watched me like I was a problem he intended to solve.
Beckett Crane-the gentle giant with scarred hands and a greenhouse full of spectral flowers, the only one who treated me like a person.
Corvin Blackthorn-the sharp-tongued trickster whose sentient shadow curled around me like it recognized something in my bones.
Ezra Quinn-the haunted seer who had been drawing my face for months before I ever walked through the gates.
I told myself I could survive one semester. Keep my head down. Learn what I was. Then walk away from the dark academy that wanted me dead.
Then an ancient ghost spoke my family name in the middle of the Parlor, and the word that followed it silenced the room:
Soulbinder.
The last one was executed three hundred years ago. The Council of Bone wanted me caged. Half the school wanted me gone. And the Veil-the barrier between the living and the dead-had begun to rot from the inside, tearing open in ways no necromancer could repair.
No necromancer except me.
I sealed the breach with power I did not understand, and my reward was a shorter leash and four morally gray heirs assigned to keep me contained. But containment meant proximity. And forced proximity meant I could no longer ignore what I felt-Beckett's steady warmth moving through my bones, Corvin's starving shadow finally going quiet in my hands, Dorian's ruthless control shattering every time I said his name, Ezra's gray eyes holding a future he was too afraid to speak aloud.
Oh, and something crossed through the Veil before I sealed it. Something old and patient and hungry.
And it knew my name.
House of Bone is the spicy, slow-burn opener of the Thornveil Academy series-a dark paranormal why choose romance set in a Gothic necromancy school on the cliffs of Maine, with four possessive heirs, a fearless bully-romance heroine, a forbidden bloodline, and a cliffhanger that will wreck you. Reverse harem. No MM. HEA by the end of the series.
Perfect for readers who love:
- Dark academia dripping with Gothic atmosphere and ghost-haunted halls
- One unbreakable heroine, four dangerously obsessed necromancers
- Enemies-to-lovers bully romance that burns slow and detonates hard
- Witches, wizards, and death magic that feels like a heartbeat
- Forced proximity, fated pull, soulbound fate
- A sentient shadow with a mind and opinions of its own
- Touch her and die... AND the dead rise
