All the Saints Lie

By Vera Hayle

Everyone lies. Especially her.

A year ago, Margot Hollis went into the black lake below Aldermere. There was no body. Only her red coat, folded neatly on a stone.

Who folds their coat before they drown?

Now her little sister has Margot's scholarship, Margot's attic room, and thirty-one days until the anniversary. She has a voicemail she swears she's never played, and a promise to her mother she has no intention of keeping.

Then a black envelope slides under her door, sealed in blood-red wax.

The Saints don't exist. Everyone at Aldermere will tell you so. They meet beneath the chapel. They wear their signet rings turned in, so nobody sees the crest. And this year they've chosen Wren Hollis as their Lamb.

The man who claims her is her tutor, Mr. Harcourt: cold, exact, a man who never raises his voice and rows alone to the lake every morning at five. Everyone says he was the last one with her sister.

He gives her a safe word. She keeps everything else.

Wren came to Aldermere to find out what the river took from her. She didn't come to fall for the man who might have put her sister in it.

What the river takes, the river keeps.

Dark academia - A secret society under the chapel - Forbidden: he's her tutor - He watches her window - A heroine who counts everything - Twists that play fair

A dark romantic thriller for readers 18+.
Content note: drowning and near-drowning, murder, death and grief, an apparent suicide, a drug overdose, violence, blackmail, an obsessive love interest, dubious consent, and explicit sex including restraint, a blindfold, breath play and wax play.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HP6G5GZW
• ISBN13: 9798164370299
• Release Date: October 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"