Night Objects - by Eli Raphael (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

In this "vivid and immersive" (Liz Moore) debut, Eli Raphael conjures the windswept coast of Washington State and a boarding school steeped in privilege and deadly secrets--a remarkable story of grief, power, and the dangerous price of belonging.

It is true that I wished him dead dozens of times. Hundreds, even. But I, Lenny Winter, did not kill that boy.

Lenny Winter is fifteen years old when she moves with her parents to an aging houseboat off the rugged coast of Washington. She imagines a quiet life spent charting constellations and chasing her dream of becoming an astronomer. Instead, a sudden tragedy shatters her world and catapults her to Blanchard, a renowned boarding school for the Pacific Northwest's elite, where wealth and tradition rule.

Blanchard is dazzling, insular-and haunted by its own legends. At its heart lurks the Pascalianum Club, a secret society known to shape the school's greatest and most notorious students, and whose influence stretches far beyond campus walls. Hungry to belong, Lenny is drawn into its orbit, even as she senses that the club feeds on the very vulnerabilities she is desperate to hide. As privilege collides with grief and loyalty warps into obsession, Lenny's choices will lead to an unforgettable reckoning--and a murder investigation that will test every story she tells herself about guilt, power, hope, and who she is becoming.

Sweeping, suspenseful, and deeply moving, Bright Work is both a gripping mystery and a profound coming-of-age story--asking what we risk, what we become, and who we hold dear, when the need to belong eclipses everything else.

About the Author

Eli Raphael is a writer and editor whose love for narratives about multicultural identities has led to stints in journalism, book preservation, translation, and tech. She holds an MA in Writing from Bar Ilan University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Temple University. Eli grew up on a boat in Miami, FL, and rural Washington state; she currently lives on dry land in Washington.