A lost journal. A long-buried secret. A story waiting to be told.
Cleo Finch has loved gothic literature all her life. She-s spent years researching and writing her thesis on the works of one gothic novelist in particular, Orlando Browne, and is determined to prove that Browne was the pen name of a female author, Alys Weston.
But as her best friend Tris never fails to remind her, she still hasn-t succeeded in finding concrete evidence that proves this to be true.
That is, until Cleo-s Uncle Ambrose unknowingly gifts her Alys- very own journal, forgotten in a stack of first-edition gothic novels.
As Cleo begins deciphering Alys'' diary entries, she finds herself utterly absorbed by Alys'' vivid descriptions of the people in her own life - particularly the rakish Lord Rayven - and the challenges Alys faced trying to keep Orlando-s true identity a secret.
And so, newly inspired, Cleo sets aside her thesis to pen a gothic novel of her own . . .<
