Return of the Heiress

St. Jude Prep is the cruelest playground of East Coast old money. Isadora Morgan once stood at the very top—until her mother’s death let her stepsister, Seraphina, steal her director’s seat, her family’s favor, and her fiancé. Seraphina steals Isadora’s purple scarf and uses it to impersonate the girl who saved Julian Vanderbilt in a stormy car crash. Blinded by obsession, Julian mistakes her for his savior, breaks off his engagement with Isadora in public, and turns her into the school’s biggest joke. Everyone waits for Isadora to break. Seraphina keeps pushing, Julian looks away, and only Tristan Holt—the unhinged campus tyrant—strikes back for her like a guard dog with teeth bared, dangerously obsessed with the way she refuses to bow. At the Silver Ball, Julian gives Seraphina the arts scholarship that should have belonged to Isadora. That is the final cut. Isadora takes off her engagement ring, drops it into Seraphina’s champagne, and declares in front of everyone: “You didn’t throw me away. I fired you.” As rain falls, she walks out alone. Everyone thinks she has lost everything. What they don’t know is that a true queen is most dangerous the moment she takes off her crown and sharpens the blade herself.