The Hollowstar Chronicles: The Lantern Beneath the Lake

Seventeen-year-old Mara Vey has spent her life hiding the strange silver marks that appear on her skin whenever someone nearby lies. On the night her older brother disappears, a black-winged creature crashes through her bedroom window and leaves behind a living lantern that whispers her name. The lantern leads Mara to Hollowstar, a secret sanctuary hidden beneath a flooded cathedral, where gifted teenagers train beside mystical creatures thought to be extinct. There she meets charming, reckless Rowan Vale, whose family is tied to the school’s darkest secret, and Elian Thorn, a quiet rival who seems to know why Mara was chosen. As friendships deepen and forbidden romance catches fire, students begin vanishing from locked rooms, ancient wards fail, and something enormous starts moving beneath the lake. Mara discovers that her brother may not be dead—and that the vanished Moon Queen has been waiting centuries for her return. To save Hollowstar, Mara must enter a realm of drowned cities, bargain with monsters, and decide whom to trust when every lie carries a price. The first book in an expansive fantasy saga of danger, desire, sacrifice, and impossible wonder.