The Best Year - Tom Ball

In the heart of a revitalized Prague, the "Best Year of Your Life" is for sale.

But for Caroline, a high-end hair stylist to the neo-feudal elite, the price of beauty has never been more literal.

While styling the hair of the city's new Prince Regent, Caroline overhears a chilling secret: the city's prosperity is fueled by L'Avenir, a company that grants clients a year of peak health and success, only to harvest their remaining life force when the contract expires. Forced to flee, Caroline finds refuge in a heavy wool coat containing a message from a dead man and an alliance with Lukas, a museum guard who knows that the city's history is being rewritten in blood.

From the fog-drenched streets of the Czech Republic to the gilded ballrooms of Vienna, Caroline is pulled into a conspiracy that spans her own family's dark heritage. Framed for a murder she believes she committed, she must enter a shimmering rift in time to find the truth. But the portal demands a devastating sacrifice: to save the world's future, Caroline must surrender her past.

She returns with the power to topple a monarchy, but she speaks a language no one has used for a thousand years. The Secret of the Velvet Lining is a high-stakes thriller about the value of a single day and the silent price of being a hero.