I read this entire book in one day. One day. That hasn’t happened in a long time—and honestly, it felt like a sign that maybe I’m finding my reading groove again. Kelley Armstrong is my favourite author, full stop, and by now you probably know that from the sheer volume of her work I’ve covered here. The A Rip Through Time series has my whole heart, her rom-com Finding Mr. Write was one of my best reads of 2024, and I’ve dipped into her standalones before with mixed results—Someone Is Always Watching was a genuinely fun mystery surprise, while I’ll Be Waiting taught me pretty definitively that horror is not my genre, even when it’s written by someone I love. So when A Deadly Inheritance landed on my ARC list—a standalone YA mystery, closer in spirit to Someone Is Always Watching than anything else—I was curious to see where it landed. Turns out: very, very high.

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.

This is Armstrong in familiar territory in the best possible way. A boarding school full of secrets, a protagonist who doesn’t quite fit, a mystery that keeps unravelling long after you think you’ve figured it out. The Armstrong signature was strong throughout—and for fans of her other work, that’s really all you need to know.

What I liked

Liliana as our entry point: Armstrong made a smart choice putting us in the POV of an outsider coming into a world of wealth and privilege for the first time. We discover Westwood Academy at the same pace Lili does—which means no clunky worldbuilding, no information dumps. It’s a seamless way to pull the reader in, and it works beautifully here.

The twists: This is Kelley Armstrong, so you know going in that things aren’t going to be straightforward—and she delivers. I lost count of how many times I thought I’d figured out who was behind everything, only to be proven completely wrong. The mystery kept me genuinely guessing from start to finish, and I loved every minute of the ride.

The characters: There are a lot of players in this story, and I was genuinely impressed by how easy it was to keep track of them all. Each character felt distinct and real, which is no small feat in an ensemble cast. I’ll just say there’s a romantic dynamic in this book that’s handled in a refreshing and open-minded way—it’s not what you might expect, and I appreciated that Armstrong didn’t shy away from it. I was firmly Team Maddox, for the record. Quiet and brooding will always win over flashy and the centre of attention.

The secret society: Elite boarding school, mysterious deaths, a secret society—it sounds like familiar territory, but Armstrong earns every bit of it. The secret society element isn’t window dressing; it’s woven into the mystery in a way that feels necessary rather than decorative.

The Armstrong signature: Even in a completely different setting and with a younger cast, this book feels unmistakably like her. The pacing, the plotting, the way tension builds quietly before it snaps—it’s all there.

What didn’t work for me

The grandparents: They loom over the entire story without ever actually appearing, and I understand why Armstrong kept them offscreen—there were already so many threads to manage. But I found myself wanting at least a brief glimpse of them. They’re such a presence in Lili’s situation that their absence started to feel conspicuous.

The ending came too fast: This was my only real complaint. We spend the whole book unravelling a genuinely complex mystery, and then the resolution happens very quickly before jumping straight into an epilogue set a year later. I would have loved one more chapter in between—something to let the dust settle and check in with the characters before the time jump. A few loose threads deserved a little more room to breathe.

Final thoughts

A Deadly Inheritance is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. Armstrong built a world that feels glamorous and dangerous in equal measure, populated it with characters who actually stick, and delivered a mystery that kept me guessing until the very end. The epilogue makes it clear this story is complete—which I respect, even if I’m a little sad about it. If you’re an Armstrong fan who hasn’t added this to your TBR, don’t wait.

4.5 STARS

“Being introverted means I can be mistaken for non-competitive, when nothing could be further from the truth. It doesn’t even matter whether I want the prize; I just like to win.” —Kelley Armstrong, A Deadly Inheritance

Thank you to NetGalley and Tundra Books for the advanced copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.