The St. Ambrose School for Girls

“Mean Girls meets We Were Liars in this compelling, cat-and-mouse thriller” (Lisa Gardner, New York Times bestselling author) set in a boarding school where secrets are devastating—and deadly.

When Sarah Taylor arrives at the exclusive St. Ambrose School, she’s carrying more baggage than just her suitcase. She knows she’s not like the other girls—if her shabby, all-black, non-designer clothes don’t give that away, the bottle of lithium hidden in her desk drawer sure does.

St. Ambrose’s queen bee, Greta Stanhope, picks Sarah as a target from day one, and she is relentless in making sure Sarah knows what the pecking order is. Thankfully, Sarah makes an ally out of her roommate Ellen “Strots” Strotsberry, a cigarette-smoking, devil-may-care athlete who takes no bullcrap. Also down the hall is Nick Hollis, the devastatingly handsome RA, and the object of more than one St. Ambrose student’s fantasies. Between Strots and Nick, Sarah hopes she can make it through the semester, dealing with not only her schoolwork and a recent bipolar diagnosis, but Greta’s increasingly malicious pranks.

Sarah is determined not to give Greta the satisfaction of breaking her. But when scandal unfolds, and someone ends up dead, her world threatens to unravel in ways she could never have imagined in this delicious, “riveting, twisty read” (Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author) that will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

Jessica Ward is a pseudonym for the #1 New York Times bestselling author who writes as J.R. Ward and has over twenty million copies in print. She enjoys spending time in the Adirondacks and lives in the south with her family and her dogs.

J.R. Ward is the author of more than sixty novels, including those in her #1 New York Times bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood series. There are more than twenty million copies of her novels in print worldwide, and they have been published in twenty-seven different countries. She lives in the south with her family.