Format: 424 pages, Paperback
Release Date: March 24, 2026
Publisher: Tundra Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult, Thriller, Suspense
Publisher: Tundra Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult, Thriller, Suspense
After discovering she's an heiress to a billion-dollar corporation, seventeen-year-old Liliana finds herself at a new boarding school where she must navigate secret societies and a deadly competition. Not to mention two handsome boys.
The Reappearance of Rachel Price meets The Inheritance Games series in this new YA thriller from bestselling author Kelley Armstrong.
In the wake of her mother's death, Liliana Chamberlain's estranged (and very wealthy) grandparents swoop in. Or their lawyer does. Her grandparents aren't ready to meet her, but they want her to have the life her mother walked away from, starting with Westdale Academy, the elite boarding school her mother attended. It should be a Cinderella dream come true, but Lili has serious misgivings. Yet she doesn't have a choice, being under eighteen and dead broke.
Westdale Academy is a school of secrets as well as intriguing classmates, including Hollywood golden boy Theo Dubois and the mysterious Maddox Moreno. As she gets to know them all, Lili realizes there's more to the school than elite-level networking. Something deadly.
For the new girl at school, investigating the deaths of past students — including Maddox's own sister — is a very dangerous game. Do those deaths have something to do with why her mother fled Westdale at the cost of her inheritance?
When a fun night out turns bloody, Theo is the prime suspect, and Liliana must race against time to connect the past with the present and discover the truth behind her inheritance.
The Reappearance of Rachel Price meets The Inheritance Games series in this new YA thriller from bestselling author Kelley Armstrong.
In the wake of her mother's death, Liliana Chamberlain's estranged (and very wealthy) grandparents swoop in. Or their lawyer does. Her grandparents aren't ready to meet her, but they want her to have the life her mother walked away from, starting with Westdale Academy, the elite boarding school her mother attended. It should be a Cinderella dream come true, but Lili has serious misgivings. Yet she doesn't have a choice, being under eighteen and dead broke.
Westdale Academy is a school of secrets as well as intriguing classmates, including Hollywood golden boy Theo Dubois and the mysterious Maddox Moreno. As she gets to know them all, Lili realizes there's more to the school than elite-level networking. Something deadly.
For the new girl at school, investigating the deaths of past students — including Maddox's own sister — is a very dangerous game. Do those deaths have something to do with why her mother fled Westdale at the cost of her inheritance?
When a fun night out turns bloody, Theo is the prime suspect, and Liliana must race against time to connect the past with the present and discover the truth behind her inheritance.
Kelley Armstrong's A Deadly Inheritance centers on a discovery after Lilliana Green's mother dies: a boarding school for the extremely rich, secret societies, dark academia, and a twisted "why bother" choosing a complicated romance among 3 key characters: Lili, Theo, and Maddox. Seventeen-year-old Liliana (Lili) Green is barely scraping by after her mother's sudden death. She's been living alone in their apartment, dodging authorities, and trying to finish high school until she turns 18, when she can attend college.
Then a lawyer named Cecilia Robbins appears, revealing that Lili is the heiress to a massive family fortune from her estranged billionaire grandparents, Chamberlain. (She also went to school with Lili's mom and knew her father). They aren't ready to meet her personally but want her to claim the life her mother rejected—starting with enrollment at Westdale Academy, the elite boarding school her mother once attended. Lili is thrust into a world of privilege, where wealth, status, and hidden power structures rule.
At the academy, she encounters secret societies, intense social dynamics, mysterious deaths, and a "deadly competition" tied to her newfound inheritance. She must navigate suspicion from peers, unravel family secrets linking past and present, and figure out who she can trust—especially amid two intriguing love interests and rising danger that puts her own life at risk. The story mixes Cinderella-like upheaval with high-stakes mystery, grief processing, and teen found-family vibes.
The dark academia atmosphere is moody and immersive, with elite boarding-school tensions, secret societies, and an undercurrent of menace that keeps pages turning. Armstrong lost me a bit with the "why choose" poly relationship storyline. That's not typically a trope I read, and certainly not one I was expecting in a YA novel, and likely won't read it again. Another failure for me was the numerous plot holes, a rushed ending, and a main mystery that didn't quite deliver the punch the author thought she'd created.
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