A Deadly Inheritance by Kelley Armstrong

In the wake of her mother's death, Liliana Chamberlain's estranged (and very wealthy) grandparents swoop in. Or their lawyer does. Her grandparents aren't ready to meet her, but they want her to have the life her mother walked away from, starting with Westwood Academy, the elite boarding school her mother attended. It should be a Cinderella dream come true, but Lili has serious misgivings. Yet she doesn't have a choice, being under eighteen and dead broke.

Westwood Academy is a school of secrets as well as intriguing classmates, including Hollywood golden boy Theo Dubois and the mysterious Maddox Moreno. As she gets to know them all, Lili realizes there's more to the school than elite-level networking. Something deadly.

For the new girl at school, investigating the deaths of past students — including Maddox's own sister — is a very dangerous game. Do those deaths have something to do with why her mother fled Westdale at the cost of her inheritance?

When a fun night out turns bloody, Theo is the prime suspect, and Liliana must race against time to connect the past with the present and discover the truth behind her inheritance.

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Wealth, secrets, and the uncomfortable realisation that money doesn’t just talk - it lies.

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Pre-Reading Thoughts

This had immediate The Inheritance Games energy: sudden wealth, elite school, and a protagonist dropped into a world where everyone knows more than they’re saying. Add in a boarding school setting and a suspiciously dead sister, and it promised exactly the kind of privileged-people-behaving-badly drama that is endlessly entertaining.

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Post-Reading

As I thought…
The rich-people ecosystem was deliciously cutthroat. Westwood Academy runs on secrets, alliances, and unspoken rules, and Lili’s outsider perspective makes every interaction feel like stepping into a trap. The tension builds nicely as she starts tugging on threads people clearly don’t want pulled.

It surprised me by…
How grounded the emotional core was. Beneath the wealth fantasy and thriller mechanics, this is really about grief, abandonment, and trying to figure out who your mother really was. Also, the romance doesn’t fall into the obvious grooves - it feels more cautious, more uncertain, which fits the atmosphere of mistrust perfectly.

And while the mystery resolves satisfyingly, the world feels bigger than just this one story. There’s absolutely room for more skeletons in these designer closets.

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🎵 Music Pairing

Featured Song: Royals – Lorde
Cool, detached, and quietly critical of wealth and status - perfect for watching rich teenagers implode.

Vibe Album: Pure Heroine
Minimalist, observant, and faintly cynical.

Artist Recommendation: Billie Eilish
Soft menace, emotional distance, and the sense that something is deeply wrong beneath the surface.

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Vibe Check

• Colour Palette: Black lacquer, champagne gold, midnight blue, blood red

• Soundtrack: Quiet footsteps on marble floors, distant laughter, a phone vibrating with bad news

• Season: Autumn, when everything is beautiful and quietly dying

• Mood: Suspicious but determined

• Scent: Expensive perfume failing to hide the smell of rain and old stone

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Tarot Pull: Seven of Swords

This is the card of secrets, deception, and carefully controlled truths. Someone is always sneaking, always withholding, always managing the narrative. Lili’s journey is about realising that survival in this world doesn’t just require honesty - it requires strategy. Not everyone is lying, but no one is telling the whole truth.

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For Fans Of

• Book: The Inheritance Games

• TV Show: Pretty Little Liars

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One-Sentence Verdict

A sharp, satisfying boarding school thriller where wealth opens doors - but also hides bodies behind them.

A Deadly Inheritance publishes on the 24th of March, 2026. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.