Gods & Monsters

Every story remembers.

Harvey Collins thought his biggest challenge this school year would be convincing his students that Beowulf still mattered. Then impossible footprints appear beneath the football stadium. Ancient words begin changing inside classroom texts. And during the opening game of the season, something that should have remained trapped in literature tears its way into the real world.

Hidden beneath Crimson Ridge High lies the Athenaeum, where teachers, librarians, and scholars have secretly guarded humanity for centuries by preserving the books that keep monsters imprisoned. But the bindings are failing, and someone is deliberately breaking rules meant to survive for centuries.

As football star Conrad Montgomery, yearbook editor Paris Edwards, and reluctant leader Blaine Lance uncover impossible legacies of their own, they must decide a question older than civilization itself:

When the story calls someone a monster,

who gets to write the final chapter?