Gilded monsters, book 1: Beautiful Villain
Rebecca F. Kenney2024

Seven years ago, I lost him for good. Now he’s back, but is he still the Jay Gatsby I used to know…or is he something more? Something…darker.

Daisy Finnegan is looking forward to a summer of fun on Glassy Mountain, North Carolina. She doesn’t want to think about college, or the newly awakened power of her own voice, which has a way of making people do increasingly frightening things.

But when her cousin goes missing at an exclusive house party, Daisy confronts the mysterious host…only to discover the wealthy recluse is Jay Gatsby, her childhood sweetheart. Shocked at the change in the boy she once knew so well, Daisy investigates the source of Gatsby’s new riches and becomes entangled in a web of dizzying wealth, lies and obsession darker than she ever could have dreamed. It all culminates in an act of violence that shatters the summer haze and threatens to drown them all.

But it isn’t until Gatsby is shot through the heart?and survives?that Daisy learns the whole truth. Gatsby clawed his way up in the world by selling the secret of immortality to the highest bidder, using his lavish parties as the ultimate cover. But Gatsby’s intricately laid plans are in danger…and so, by extension, is he.

With her friends’ lives at stake, her own untested power still volatile, and an unimaginable threat closing in, Daisy will have to face an impossible choice: side with the man who claimed her heart…or with the monsters who would see him lost to her forever.

Titre original : Gilded monsters, book 1: Beautiful Villain (2024)