Free Audiobook: Bound, by Ali Hazelwood

Forgery, secrets, and a dangerous partnership

Bound follows Veronica Vero Mercer, an art history grad student who turns her knowledge of inks and vellum into a quiet forgery side job when bills mount and friends need help. The work draws the eye of a polished professor with his own agenda and a taste for rare manuscripts.

Instead of reporting her, Dr. Viktor Ashworth proposes a deal that pulls Vero into a lab of fibers, marginalia, and midnight tests. Long hours sharpen a guarded chemistry as the project grows riskier and the line between protector and conspirator blurs.

Set on a foggy New England campus with locked archives and whispered rumors, this dark academia romance pairs meticulous craft with slow building tension. It is a story about choosing which truths to keep and which to share when desire enters the equation.