Lush, thrilling, and inventive, MADDER LAKE is something utterly fresh in the romantasy space. It has the anonymous yearning of The Night Circus, the examination of the foreign student experience of Babel, and the use of magic to explore a sense of belonging and the definition of home of Starling House. But it also has a system in which magic and art are intricately intertwined, alongside a deep investigation of who gets access to that art and who serves as its gatekeepers.

MADDER LAKE
by Katie Wu
HarperVoyager, March 2027
(via Dystel Goderich & Bourret)

At Xenra, the world’s top magic painting university, blending art and the arcane is commonplace. But for Ayla, a homesick immigrant, commonplace isn’t good enough. Not if she wants to graduate with a lucrative patronage and afford treatment for her dying mother back home. When the school cancels her scholarship, she’ll do anything to stay at Xenra—including asking her privileged rival Constantine to team up for a painting competition that would guarantee her tuition.

Except there can only be one winner—she’ll have to beat him in the final round of the contest. Her only hope is a mysterious canvas she finds hidden in the school—a canvas that can turn anything painted on it into reality. With the power to change the art market (and perhaps the world), it’s the perfect way to stand out among her peers. But as Ayla investigates the canvas, she discovers that she’s not the only one working on it…

Constantine, desperate to rejoin his family after being disowned years ago, has found it too. They anonymously collaborate on it—and pass wordless confessions through its brushstrokes—all while butting heads on their joint project. As her mother’s condition worsens and Constantine’s powerful family threatens their shot at the competition, Ayla needs to solve the mysteries of the canvas and secure her win, once and for all. But unraveling century-old secrets risks the very fate of her people, so Ayla and Constantine must each decide if winning is truly worth selling out this magic—and each other.

Katie Wu is an author of swoony and strange books. Born stateside but raised in Shanghai, she then studied computer science and fine arts at the University of Pennsylvania, and is now based in NYC. You can find Katie Wu on TikTok/Instagram as @katiewuwrites. MADDER LAKE is her adult fantasy debut.