Nightshade (Sorrowsong University, #1)

by Autumn Woods

“My life stopped four years ago,” she says, breaking the fragile silence. “I used to read. I used to bake cakes and make pottery. I used to have a friendship group. I gave up on it all the day they died. I only swam because the lake was so cold, I couldn’t think about anything else. Your father buried their deaths. Erased all trace of them, sent out a hundred NDAs to a hundred of the right people.” Her next breath is a shudder. “I didn’t get support from anyone. Didn’t get financial support, or council support, because there was no record they’d died. The house was bought out by your father’s company and gifted to me, but I was completely alone. No newspaper wanted to hear about it, no journalist would risk crossing your father. I couldn’t bring myself to go to school, didn’t sit my exams. I wanted to be a psychologist, but no universities had a place for a girl who didn’t finish school.”