Corrupt

Corrupt was self-published by Penelope Douglas in 2015, in the run of new adult fiction that the author built independently before larger publishers picked up her backlist. It opens a set of books about four friends, of which this is the first and the one that establishes the rules: the men are rich, the town is small, and the events of a single night years earlier are the debt that drives the plot. The novel alternates between Rika's and Michael's viewpoints, so the reader knows more about both of their intentions than either character does.

Erika Fane has grown up on the edge of the Crist household and learned to be careful around it. Michael Crist is a senior at the same university, the star of its basketball team, and a person who has spent years deciding how to hurt the girl who was once his brother's girlfriend. His friends are not decoration: the group is the structure the series is built on, and this book ends by handing a problem to the next one.

Douglas writes the relationship as an argument about control rather than a courtship. The book carries the warnings expected of the subgenre, including violence, harassment, explicit sex and a male lead who is not written to be admirable. It is the first of the Devil's Night sequence and reads as the volume that sets the board.