She has a sharp mind... and even sharper teeth.
Insatiable
by Erica Ridley
Genre: YA Historical Horror, Thriller
A chilling Gothic
horror novel set at a coed boarding school in Scotland, where a teen girl must
not only fight against her monstrous male classmates but the monster growing
within her after being cursed.
Every wish granted comes with strings attached. That’s how Catriona Cameron
gets a scholarship to Floodbane Academy—an elite boarding school in the
Scottish Lowlands she never applied to—where she’ll be one of only six girls to
enter the castle’s unwelcoming halls.
She’s not looking for trouble, but after a violent attack, mischievous dark
fairies grant cruel wishes made against her. Catriona is blessed with
devastatingly good looks and unpredictable new powers, but cursed with an
insatiable hunger to devour anyone who preys upon women.
As the carnage mounts, Catriona faces the possibility that she is becoming as
monstrous as those she hunts. Ultimately, is vengeance worth the loss of her
humanity?
**Releases September 22, 2026 – PreOrder Now!**
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An anguished
shriek pierces the air overhead, and I open my eyes to inky blackness. I cannot
fathom how my driver Mr. Ross can tell where we’re heading. Yet he urges the horses
ever faster through this thick molasses of nothingness.
“What was that
noise?” I whisper.
“Nothing,” comes his
disinterested reply.
I don’t believe
him.
Spiderwebs
envelop me—in my hair, on my face, in my mouth—and I’m shrieking, flailing,
spitting… only to realize that they’re not spiderwebs after all, but the ghostly
mist of early morning.
The darkness
hides my embarrassment. Floodbane Academy is a boys’ school. I cannot allow my
male classmates’ first impression of a female student to be a display of
hysterics. I must stay strong or at least look that way.
No matter how much
I may tremble inside.
The horses make a
sharp turn, and the carriage drifts precariously to one side. I recall Mr. Ross’s
warning that the campus is surrounded by steep cliffs, and deep, freezing
rivers, and dark, dangerous forests.
The first hint of
light trickles through the thick foliage. Trees part to reveal a wide,
packed-dirt road, and up ahead… My breath catches. Time ceases to tick forward.
Floodbane
Academy. This is it. My final destination.
Even if the
school’s name hadn’t been written in script on the massive wrought iron gates
before us, there would be no doubt that I’ve arrived somewhere worth visiting.
No thatched roofs
and rotting wooden walls here. The academy is a fortified castle of shimmering
pearlescent stone, with four tall turrets stabbing up into the brink of dawn. Mist
clings to the towers like smoke from a battlefield. The clouds bloom red, like
blood spilling onto cotton. The sun’s white-hot rays pierce my pupils as if I’m
unfit to cast my eyes upon a future this bright.
I squint to
protect my vision, though nothing could tear my gaze away from my new home.
It’s built fine enough for a king, and big enough to house the grandest army. It
must hold a ballroom, a gymnasium, a library the size of my old church...
“This is where
I’m going to live?” I exclaim in delighted wonder.
Mr. Ross
chuckles. “No.”
Rather than go
through the majestic gates, he takes a weed-matted trail leading away from the
school.
I yelp in alarm.
“Where are you going?”
“Female housing.”
The horses duck
beneath a copse of drooping branches, to lead us back into darkness. This time,
I see how close the wheels are to scraping the trees, and how close a crooked
branch comes to taking off the top of my head. This trail isn’t meant for
carriages. Not a single weed or thornbush has been cleared aside to make way
for the new crop of students.
“You’re certain
they know we’re coming?” I ask with hesitation.
“They all know.”
His words should
have assured me, but instead, they sound ominous.
“Duck,” Mr. Ross
advises as the horses put on a burst of speed.
I dive to the
floor to avoid being decapitated by passing tree branches.
Eventually, the
carriage rattles to a stop. When I raise my head, I find a different structure.
One I shall not confuse with the
academy.
It is the house
in every fairy tale that one dares not enter. The lair of witches in the woods.
The gateway to hell from sweat-soaked nightmares.
A narrow
two-story structure of thin, unrelenting gray, mottled with dead vines and
great scabs of caked-on dirt. Bones so derelict, the sneeze of a hummingbird
could send the place shuddering in a thousand directions, burying its residents
beneath two tons of rotted rubble.
“Female housing
quarters,” Mr. Ross announces. “The ride is over. Get out.”
Erica Ridley is a New York Times bestselling
author of witty, historical novels, including the critically acclaimed Wild
Wynchesters series, and her debut young adult novel, The
Protégée. When not reading or writing, Erica can be found eating
künefe in Turkiye, zip-lining through rainforests in Costa Rica, or getting
hopelessly lost in the middle of Budapest.
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