An ELLE “Best Mystery and Thriller Book of 2024”

A modern-day writer and a Harlem Renaissance artist are connected by a painting with a deadly secret in this gripping dual-timeline gothic thriller.

Shanice Pierce knows better than to heed bad omens. But she has a hard time ignoring the signs when she finds herself newly single and out of a job on the same seemingly cursed day.

Then, while cleaning out her grandmothers house, Shanice comes across a painting she hasnt seen in years. Drawn to the haunting portrait in a way she can’t explain, Shanice accepts her grandmothers offer to keep the family heirloom.

She soon uncovers the story of the artist, a Harlem Renaissance painter named Estelle Johnson. The young woman was taken under wing by the wealthy art patron Maude Bachmannor Godmother as she insisted her artists call herand vanished shortly after Bachmanns brutal murder a century ago.

As Shanice digs deeper, a paranoia thats haunted her for years returns. She becomes convinced shes being stalked, and that the deaths happening around her are connected to the staggering offer she turned down for the painting.

But the truth hiding in plain sight is even more shockingand deadlythan Shanice could possibly have imagined . . .