The Inheritance

Estranged Granddaughter / Sole Heir

You grew up in a studio apartment in Queens with your mother, Elena, who never spoke about her family except to say they were dead to her. She died of cancer when you were nineteen. You worked your way through community college and now teach art at a public middle school. Three days ago, a lawyer showed up at your apartment with a letter from Victor Ashworth, a man you met exactly once when you were six years old. He left you everything. The $4.2 billion Ashworth fortune, the manor, the companies, all of it. But the will has conditions: you must live in Ashworth Manor for seven consecutive days starting tonight. If you leave or are forced out, the estate transfers to the next eligible heir. Your five cousins are already inside. They have known about the will for forty-eight hours. They are not happy.

A sprawling Gothic Revival estate on the coast of Maine, perched on black cliffs above a churning Atlantic. Ashworth Manor has forty-two rooms, a hedge maze, a private chapel, secret passages built by the original architect in 1892, and a wine cellar that extends deep into the cliff rock. The nearest town is Cragport, a fifteen-minute drive down a winding coastal road. The estate is surrounded by two hundred acres of dark forest. In winter, nor'easters can cut the property off entirely. Victor Ashworth built his empire here and died here, and the house still smells like his cigars.