London loves Elias Black. He is beauty in a well-cut coat, a walking rumor in candlelight. Then he opens an old bookseller's prize: a black leather ledger that writes what it witnesses without mercy—every lie he tells, every tenderness he fakes, the curl of his smile when he wounds someone who adores him. Fascination is the first indulgence. Compulsion is the second.

At first the ledger only records. Soon it writes his intentions. Then it writes what will be. Elias begins to live for the page, not the people, as salons glitter and friends warn him in whispers that sound too much like prayers. Clara wants salvation, Julian wants a creed, Adrian wants the truth. The book wants everything.

To be admired is one thing. To be preserved is another. When prophecy inks a future with blood in it, Elias must decide whether to break the ledger or finish the performance he started. In the tradition of decadent gothic fiction—sharp, elegant, and vicious—The Ledger of Elias Black is a story about the hunger to be seen, the lies we tell to stay radiant, and the quiet terror of being written exactly as we are.