Vows Written in Ash

When cathedral restorer Elara Voss is summoned to Blackthorn Hall after her father’s sudden death, she expects grief, debts, and dust-covered secrets. Instead, she finds a marriage contract signed in blood-red ink, binding her to Adrian Blackthorn—the reclusive heir to a crumbling dynasty accused of murdering his first wife. Cold, controlled, and dangerously magnetic, Adrian offers Elara a choice: marry him by midnight or watch her younger brother disappear into the same prison that swallowed their father’s name.

Elara enters the marriage determined to survive Adrian’s house, uncover the truth behind her family’s ruin, and resist the man who watches her like he already owns her. But Blackthorn Hall is a maze of locked rooms, whispered betrayals, and portraits with scratched-out faces. As desire turns into obsession and enemies close in from every side, Elara discovers Adrian is not the monster in the shadows—he is the weapon built to keep something far worse buried.