Mystery · Thriller

The Presumptive Heir

Victor Hargrave is still alive. His will is about to be read.

Billionaire Victor Hargrave summons his heirs to a private island and announces that he will read his own will while he is still alive. Isla Grey writes obituaries for people who are still alive, but her assignments are drying up as the Westridge Daily Times closes. She is there to record what follows—and no one knows why Hargrave refuses to wait.

The Presumptive Heir cover by JD Eells
  1. The Invitation
  2. The Guests
  3. The Secret

Before the will, there was a letter.

Victor Hargrave’s invitation is brief, calculated, and impossible for Isla Grey to ignore. It is also the first move in a game whose rules he has no intention of explaining.

Open Hargrave’s invitation

A will read before the death.

Victor Hargrave has summoned his family to Eris House for the reading of his will. There is only one problem: the billionaire is still alive. He intends to conduct the reading himself—and he has hired Isla Grey, who writes obituaries for people who are still alive, to prepare the account he plans to approve before he dies.

No one on the island knows why Hargrave has gathered them early, what he intends to reveal, or why he chose Isla to witness it. As the doors close and old secrets begin to surface, she realizes someone at Eris House is terrified of what the old man plans to say.

What waits inside

Three reasons no one leaves Eris House unchanged.

  1. A will read before the death

  2. A family summoned to hear it

  3. One witness who was never told why