The Inherited Game

Dr. Amara Holloway studies antebellum history. Her sister, Seraphina, was just another carefree tourist who vanished near Halloween. The last place Seraphina's phone pinged? The Manor of Ages, a sprawling, elite-owned haunted house famous for its realistic terror—and its annual body count. The police dismiss the disappearance as another seasonal tragedy, but Amara knows the phone ping is a breadcrumb. Breaking into the manor, she finds Seraphina's phone hidden in a secret passage leading to a slave-era tunnel, a chilling discovery that links the current disappearances to a history her books never dared to publish. She finds an unlikely, troubled ally in Detective Ben Riley, a young cop secretly fighting an internal affairs review for racist remarks, who realizes Amara's case connects to a horrifying pattern he'd seen in cold files. Riley is a man battling a dark past, descended from the very enforcers who carried out the plantation's original cruelty. As Amara and Riley uncover proof—a grotesque, mummified "trophy of the hunt" hidden in plain sight—they are ambushed by the Manor's owners: the powerful and ruthless Ashworth family. Amara is captured and Riley is forced to shoot a celebrity client, branding himself a fugitive. Now on the run, Riley's only hope is the compromised intelligence of a traitorous Ashworth daughter. The clock is ticking down to Halloween night. Amara and Seraphina are the prized victims on a horrifying menu, and they are about to become the main event in a centuries-old aristocratic tradition: The Inherited Game.