The Secret History meets Ready Player One in #1 bestselling author Ava Reid’s brand new, thrilling alternate-future duology, where four teens are recruited to a century-long, virtual Cold War until they discover the truth and decide to fight back.
WINTERVEIL
by Ava Reid
HarperCollins, September 2026
(via Sterling Lord)
The top students at Valeran Academy should be in jail. Instead, they were offered a way out: enroll and pledge themselves to the nation. In their alternate future where the Cold War still rages, America needs patriots—don’t call them spies.
In the halls of America’s most covert military academy, all that matters is who is number one. Four students rise to the top: Julian, the politician; Klaudia, strategist; Nadiya, the soldier; and Giselle, the beauty queen with a secret that could change everything.
As they compete for the top ranking that would free them from their gilded cage, the four feel strangely drawn together. Underneath every rivalry lurks a desperate yearning, bringing the strongest of them down to their knees.
Too soon, they’re ripped from the safe walls of their school and recruited for a mysterious training mission that their elusive headmaster tells them is only a simulation. But the four teens quickly realize that they are merely pawns, designed to play off of each other in a dangerous game. Even their blossoming feelings will be used against them in this game of war.
To win, they will have to question everything: each other, themselves, even their very understanding of reality.
It was only supposed to be a game. But now lives and hearts are on the line. Are you brave enough to play?
“It’s a tense, fast-paced race to a cliff-hanger of a conclusion to this duology starter. Each character is easy to root for and immaculately rendered as sympathetic, despite distinct flaws. An absolute must-read for dystopian readers and history enthusiasts alike.” – Booklist Reviews (starred review)
“Reid is well regarded for her lyrical writing and nuanced characters; here she paints a vivid portrait of a world fallen to climate change and capitalism, juxtaposed against the ways love is redemptive. VERDICT A dark dystopian novel for readers craving something more mature than The Hunger Games. Perfect for high school collections.” – School Library Journal (starred review)
“A dark and gripping feminist tale.” – Kirkus Reviews
Ava Reid is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Study in Drowning, A Theory of Dreaming, Lady Macbeth, Juniper & Thorn, and The Wolf and the Woodsman. Her books have been published in over fourteen territories. She lives in the New York area. Follow her on Instagram @avasreid and find her online at tumblr.com/avasreid.
“
Once there was an island where the dead walked the earth, and seven noble houses ruled by the arcane secrets of necromancy.
By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society. 
In her forest-veiled pagan village, Évike is the only woman without power, making her an outcast clearly abandoned by the gods. The villagers blame her corrupted bloodline—her father was a Yehuli man, one of the much-loathed servants of the fanatical king. When soldiers arrive from the Holy Order of Woodsmen to claim a pagan girl for the king’s blood sacrifice, Évike is betrayed by her fellow villagers and surrendered. But when monsters attack the Woodsmen and their captive en route, slaughtering everyone but Évike and the cold, one-eyed captain, they have no choice but to rely on each other. Except he’s no ordinary Woodsman—he’s the disgraced prince, Gáspár Bárány, whose father needs pagan magic to consolidate his power. Gáspár fears that his cruelly zealous brother plans to seize the throne and instigate a violent reign that would damn the pagans and the Yehuli alike. As the son of a reviled foreign queen, Gáspár understands what it’s like to be an outcast, and he and Évike make a tenuous pact to stop his brother. As their mission takes them from the bitter northern tundra to the smog-choked capital, their mutual loathing slowly turns to affection, bound by a shared history of alienation and oppression. However, trust can easily turn to betrayal, and as Évike reconnects with her estranged father and discovers her own hidden magic, she and Gáspár need to decide whose side they’re on, and what they’re willing to give up for a nation that never cared for them at all.