First published 2026
Willa Childs arrives at Dorsey House with a blank slate where her memories should be. The reformatory sits on a cliff above the ocean, and nobody will explain why she's there. The Dorseys who run the place stay silent about her past. Two other residents, Caroline and Ivy, watch her with knowing looks but keep their secrets close. These girls act like old friends while treating Willa like an outsider. They whisper that she's been to Dorsey House before, which makes no sense. As fragments of memory surface, Willa realizes Caroline and Ivy might know her better than she knows herself. The building feels wrong, filled with presences that shouldn't exist. Reality shifts around her as she questions whether her mind can be trusted. Willa becomes convinced something supernatural haunts the halls, but she can't identify what. The girls' behavior grows stranger as they insist on impossible truths about her history. Willa faces a terrible choice between accepting their version of events or trusting her fractured memories. She must discover what brought her to this place before she loses herself completely.
Genres: fiction, mystery, horror, young-adult, psychological-thriller, gothic
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, haunting, mysterious, suspenseful, unsettling
Tropes: gaslighting, haunted-location, mysterious-past, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Dorsey House, Cliff above the ocean
272 pages · Hardcover · Delacorte Press
Content warnings: gaslighting, mental-illness