What Buried Us at Twenty-Five
Old friends. One forbidden pact. No way out.

About this book:

Seven years ago, six eighteen-year-olds made a pact on the shores of Blackwood Lake: take the secret to their graves. Now, at twenty-five, they've built lives worth losing—careers, engagements, futures—and the past is clawing its way out of the mud. When a state construction crew breaks ground fifty feet from the burial site, Julian summons them back to the cabin with two words: *It's out.* They have until Monday morning to dig up what they buried, weight it properly this time, and sink it into the lake's deepest trench. But the storm rolling in off the Adirondacks isn't the only thing turning the water dark.

Each of them has spent seven years running: Leo patching up children in a Syracuse ER, Marcus pouring concrete to keep his hands from shaking, Sarah painting over the cracks, Elena prosecuting the guilty while guarding her own indictment, Julian curating a life of calculated perfection. Only Maya never stopped screaming. Now, trapped in a house that remembers everything, with a lawyer who calculates survival in plea bargains and a friend who's already decided who gets sacrificed, the pact begins to fracture. The shovels are in the shed. The boat is gassed. The rain won't stop. And someone in that room has already decided the truth won't stay buried—even if the rest of them have to go down with it.

*What Buried Us at Twenty-Five* is a relentless, atmospheric thriller about the lies we tell to survive, the friends who become our jailers, and the terrible arithmetic of how many bodies it takes to keep a secret. For fans of *The Likeness* and *The Secret History*, this is a descent into the cold, black water where the past never drowns—it just waits.