What would you sacrifice for your art? What if someone was willing to sacrifice you?
Maya Chen is drowning in student debt when she lands the opportunity of a lifetime-working as a live-in assistant for legendary sculptor Victor Ashford at his remote coastal estate. The Gothic mansion perched on Big Sur's cliffs seems like the perfect sanctuary to focus on her struggling art career. But something is wrong at Ravenshollow Estate.
Maya's paintings begin changing overnight-techniques she's never learned appearing on her canvases like ghostly signatures. Her memory fragments into disturbing gaps, while Victor watches her work with an intensity that makes her skin crawl. When she discovers the belongings of previous assistants hidden throughout the mansion, Maya realizes none of them ever left.
Victor has been hunting artists for decades.
What Maya thought was mentorship is actually a twisted experiment in consciousness and creativity. Victor has been drugging her, stealing her artistic innovations, and documenting her psychological breakdown-all in service of his "masterwork" that requires the ultimate sacrifice. Trapped in a mansion with no phone service during a violent Pacific storm, Maya must escape before becoming another specimen in Victor's gallery of preserved victims. But the experimental drugs in her system are causing hallucinations, and she can no longer trust her own perceptions.
Some teachers will stop at nothing to claim their students' souls.
From the bestselling tradition of domestic thrillers comes a chilling tale of artistic ambition, psychological manipulation, and the deadly price of creative breakthrough. Perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Riley Sager.
How far would you go for your art? How far would someone else go to take it from you?
