Wicked Heir

So many books slap a gothic library on the cover and call it dark academia. Wicked Heir actually builds the thing. Halberd University is a 250 year old school on the New Hampshire coast, chartered in 1771, and the Sons of Halberd were chartered the same week. Latin inscriptions in the chapel. A library with bones in its foundations because of a founders' ritual. A spring-equinox rite the three Horsemen have performed every year since 1772 and cannot skip. The society has a charter, a chamber, an obsidian table, a knife-bound oath.

Into all of that walks Vesper Reyes, an English Lit junior who is actually an FBI informant. She has a recorder the size of a button sewn into her coat lining and a deal: bring down the eldest Horseman, get her brother's heroin sentence reduced. The charge was a syndicate setup. The FBI offered the trade. She took it.

The twist that makes this book is that Dominic Halberd already knew. The handler who flipped Vesper was on the Halberd payroll. Dominic read her file, her brother's file, and the handler's file every morning for four weeks before she arrived. He chose the date he would tell her. When he walks into her rare-book reading room and lifts the coat from her shoulders and says he will need that button back, baby, in a week, you understand the chase was over before it started.

Dominic is the morally grey heir done right. Not a soft boy underneath. He kills two people on the page. He has simply decided Vesper is his and is methodically removing every threat to her, including from his own family, while she still thinks she is hunting him. The possessive register, the I know baby I know, never tips into cartoon.

For readers of Rina Kent's God of Malice and Penelope Douglas. Five chilies, real consent protocol inside the dub-con scene, extensive content warnings at the front. The dark academia layer is the wedge and it works. Book 1 of three and I need Cassius and Lior immediately.

The marketing line says these are tropes worth committing a federal crime for and honestly, after reading Wicked Heir, I understand the FBI informant. I would also walk into the wolf's mouth for Dominic Halberd.

Vesper Reyes is twenty-two, an English Lit junior, and an FBI confidential informant. The deal she took: enroll at Halberd University, infiltrate the founding-family secret society called the Sons of Halberd, gather the evidence the FBI needs to indict the eldest Horseman, Dominic Halberd, and her younger brother's sentence on a heroin charge the syndicate set him up for gets reduced. She memorized the campus. She rehearsed her cover. She sewed a recorder the size of a coat button into the lining of her coat.

She thought she was the hunter, and Sloane Ashford spends the book gently, mercilessly proving she never was. The FBI handler who flipped Vesper has been on the Halberd payroll the entire time. Dominic knew her real name the morning before she arrived. He read her file, her brother's file, the handler's file, every morning for four weeks. He chose the date he would tell her.

The rare-book reading room is where it lands. Dominic walks in, takes the coat off Vesper's shoulders, hangs it on the hook by the door, and tells her, calm as anything, that he is going to need that button back at some point, baby, and he will give her a week. The polarity of the whole book inverts in one sentence.

What I did not expect was the tenderness underneath the cruelty. Dominic has been removing threats to Vesper all semester, from rivals and from his own family. I know baby, I know is reverent and cruel in equal measure.

Dark college mafia for Rina Kent and H.D. Carlton readers. Five chilies, on-page dub-con with a real consent protocol, two on-page deaths, content warnings at the front, read them. HEA. Sons of Halberd Book 1.

If you have been on BookTok in the last few weeks you have seen the line. I am going to need that button back at some point, baby. I will give you a week. I went in knowing the line and the scene still floored me, because Sloane Ashford built the entire architecture of Wicked Heir to make that moment land like a guillotine.

Here is the architecture. Vesper Reyes is an FBI informant. She enrolled at Halberd University, a 250 year old coastal school whose founding-family secret society, the Sons of Halberd, has run the regional syndicate since 1771. Her mission is to infiltrate the Sons and gather evidence to indict the eldest of the three Horsemen, Dominic Halberd. Her payment is her younger brother's reduced sentence on a syndicate-framed heroin charge. She sewed a recorder the size of a button into her coat lining.

She thinks she is the hunter. She is not. The FBI handler who flipped her was on the Halberd payroll. Dominic knew her real name before she arrived. So when he walks into the rare-book reading room she thought was her hiding place, takes the coat off her shoulders, hangs it on the hook by the door, and asks for the button back, every reader in the world understands the chase was over before it began.

The reverent cruelty, I know baby, I know, is the trilogy's signature and it is dialed to full volume here. Dominic is the morally grey heir with no softening, two on-page deaths, and he has been removing every threat to Vesper, from rivals and his own family, all semester.

Dark college mafia for Rina Kent's God of Malice and H.D. Carlton's Haunting Adeline readers. Five chilies, on-page dub-con with a consent protocol, content warnings at the front, read them. HEA. Sons of Halberd Book 1. I am not okay.

I picked this up because the cover is gorgeous and the comp list said Rina Kent and H.D. Carlton, and I stayed up until 3am because Sloane Ashford built a world I did not want to leave. Halberd University is fictional and feels older than half the real ones, a New Hampshire coastal campus chartered in 1771 with a chapel full of Latin and a library with bones in its foundations. The Sons of Halberd, the founding-family secret society, were chartered the same week and have run the regional syndicate ever since.

Three Horsemen sit at the top of the Sons in every generation. This generation the eldest is Dominic Halberd, twenty-five, fifth-year senior and graduate student, heir to the syndicate. The other two are Cassius Bly, a senator's son, and Lior Vance, the quiet lawyer-in-training. They have known each other since the cradle and perform a spring-equinox ritual no Horseman can skip.

Vesper Reyes is the FBI informant who walks into all of this with a single suitcase and a recorder sewn into her coat lining. The FBI flipped her with her brother's reduced sentence as the bait, a heroin charge the syndicate set him up for. She thinks she is hunting Dominic.

But Dominic knew her name before she arrived, because the handler who flipped her was already on the Halberd payroll. The whole inverted-hunter structure unspools from there, and the rare-book reading room scene where he takes her coat off her shoulders, hangs it on a hook, and tells her he needs that button back, baby, in a week, is the moment the book has you for good.

Reverent cruelty, the I know baby I know register, never overdone. Five chilies, on-page dub-con with the consent protocol as the spine, two on-page deaths, content warnings at the front you need to read. HEA. Sons of Halberd Book 1, and I have already pre-ordered Wicked Son.

What grounds Wicked Heir, what keeps it from being only spectacle, is Vesper Reyes's brother. Everything Vesper does in this book she does because her younger brother is serving time on a heroin charge the Halberd syndicate set him up for, and the FBI offered her a reduced sentence for him if she would enroll at Halberd University, infiltrate the Sons of Halberd, and gather evidence to indict the eldest Horseman.

Sloane Ashford never lets you forget that this is the gun to Vesper's head. She is not on this campus for adventure. She is a twenty-two-year-old English Lit junior who would burn the world for her brother, and she has a recorder sewn into her coat lining like a button, and she has rehearsed her cover for four weeks, and she believes she is the hunter.

Dominic Halberd knew all of it before she arrived. The FBI handler who flipped Vesper was on the Halberd payroll. Dominic read her file, her brother's file, and the handler's file every morning for four weeks. He even understood, better than the FBI did, what her brother means to her. The inverted hunter and hunted is the engine, and the brother is the emotional core that makes the inversion hurt.

The rare-book reading room scene, the coat, the hook, the button, I am going to need that button back, baby, I will give you a week, is the screenshot moment, and the reverent-cruelty register, I know baby I know, is exact. And Dominic, the whole semester, has been removing every threat to Vesper, from rivals and from his own family.

Dark college mafia for Rina Kent and Penelope Douglas readers. Five chilies, on-page dub-con with a consent protocol, two on-page deaths, content warnings at the front, read them. HEA. Sons of Halberd Book 1. The brother's reduced sentence lands and I cried.