A lost journal. A long-buried secret. A story waiting to be told.

Cleo Finch has loved gothic literature all her life. She’ s spent years researching and writing her thesis on the works of one gothic novelist in particular, Orlando Browne, and is determined to prove that Browne was the pen name of a female author, Alys Weston.

But as her best friend Tris never fails to remind her, she still hasn’ t succeeded in finding concrete evidence that proves this to be true.

That is, until Cleo’ s Uncle Ambrose unknowingly gifts her Alys’ very own journal, forgotten in a stack of first-edition gothic novels.

As Cleo begins deciphering Alys' diary entries, she finds herself utterly absorbed by Alys' vivid descriptions of the people in her own life - particularly the rakish Lord Rayven - and the challenges Alys faced trying to keep Orlando’ s true identity a secret.

And so, newly inspired, Cleo sets aside her thesis to pen a gothic novel of her own . . .