First published 2024
Ava Baldwin has spent years controlling her temper, following her mother's careful guidance. When classmate Owen King talks over her once too often, her fury erupts and Owen becomes completely frozen and unresponsive. Though Owen recovers, Ava's parents immediately send her and her brother Jax to the Accademia del Forte, a secretive international boarding school in Venice where her mother once studied. At the Accademia, Ava learns the Olympian gods created the school to educate descendants of mythological monsters. Students master emotional control and harness their inherited powers to blend into human society. Ava begins understanding her own dangerous abilities while navigating this strange new world. The school's perfect facade crumbles when Ava's friend Fia faces expulsion for questioning a teacher. Ava realizes the Accademia conceals something sinister beneath its educational mission. She joins forces with new allies to expose the institution's hidden agenda. Their investigation threatens to reshape everything they believed about history, mythology, and their own identities. The quest for truth puts their lives at stake.
Genres: mystery, fantasy, contemporary, young-adult
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Venice, Accademia del Forte
Period: Contemporary
288 pages · Kindle Edition · Clarion Books