Madder Lake: A Novel

A homesick foreign student joins forces with her posh rival to win a painting contest when her scholarship is cancelled—all while they anonymously collaborate on a magical canvas that could change the world…and try not to fall in love.

At Xenra, the world’s foremost university for studying the art of transportive painting, blending art and the arcane is commonplace. But for Ayla, a foreigner in a xenophobic country, commonplace isn’t good enough. Not if she wants to graduate with a lucrative patronage and afford treatment for her dying mother back home. When the school cancels her scholarship, she’ll do anything to stay at Xenra—including asking her privileged rival Constantine to team up with her for a painting competition that would guarantee her tuition.

But there can only be one winner and Ayla will have to face—and beat—Constantine on her own in the contest’s final test. As someone who can barely afford food or new clothes, let alone painting supplies, Ayla is surprised to discover a mysterious canvas—a canvas that can turn anything painted on it into reality. With the power to change the art market (and perhaps the world), she’s hoping to learn what makes it work and apply that to her own paintings. But as Ayla investigates the magical canvas, she discovers that she’s not the only one working on it—someone else is adding to the painting as well. If she doesn’t hurry and figure out its power, she may lose her chance to become a patron-sponsored artist and save her family.

But she isn’t the only one struggling. Constantine, desperate to rejoin his aristocratic family after being disowned years ago, is the other artist working on the magical canvas. And even as he secretly collaborates on it—and passes wordless confessions through each brushstroke—he is butting heads against the captivating and maddening Ayla on their joint project.

As Ayla’s mother’s condition worsens and Constantine’s powerful family threatens their chances in the competition, Ayla must solve the mysteries of the canvas and secure her win, once and for all. But unraveling century-old secrets risks the very fate of her people, and Ayla and Constantine must each decide if winning is truly worth selling out this magic—and each other.