The Skeleton Key is a YA fantasy set in a secret magical country where every day might kill you: monsters roam the streets, high school starts at midnight, and everyday travel involves braving a spirit realm.  Fifteen-year-old Riley James has always been out of step with her peers at the group home. After a vampire hunts her down, she learns why: she's the daughter of two murdered witches from the eerie country of Aurelia. She manages to escape the vampire with a stolen object that brings her to this unknown land.  But Aurelia rejects those without powers, threatening Riley's chance to investigate her parents' murders. In a bid to stay, Riley devises a way to fake them--only to wind up as the only person at a magic school who can't do magic. Avoiding exposure is difficult, but her ruse becomes dangerous when she discovers she's a Guardian, a prominent position that's been held by those in Riley's family for generations. It will not only see her trained to fight Aurelia's many monsters, but will force her to work with Fiery Davis, the son of the man accused of killing her parents. Fiery might hate her, but for Riley, familiarity breeds something much sweeter than contempt.  After she's attacked at a ball, Riley starts to wonder if the rumors about Fiery's father being framed are true—a revelation that is later backed by the ghost haunting her family's manor. With the help of her new friends, she sets out to unmask the true killer. But the more she looks, the messier things become, and she soon uncovers a web of corruption surrounding her parents’ murders. A web that someone will--and has--killed to keep hidden, and which Riley's return to Aurelia now threatens to expose. When “accidents” start to happen, it’s clear that Riley’s next. Monsters are the least of her concerns when the greatest danger comes from powerful people with dark secrets who will do anything to keep them.