Phantasma

Phantasma is the first novel of Kaylie Smith's Phantasma series, published in 2024 by Forever and Grand Central Publishing, among others. It is a fantasy romance built on a contest: a haunted mansion that rearranges itself, nine challenges that get worse as the house learns about the people inside it, and a single prize of one wish for whoever survives to the end.

Ophelia enters the contest because her sister has disappeared and a wish is the only way she knows to bring her back. She is not equipped for a mansion full of twisting corridors, lavish ballrooms, demons and temptations, and the rules she is given are short: stay alive, and do not fall in love. Each round is designed around whichever contestant it has been paired with, which makes the house as much an opponent as the other players.

Her offer of help comes from Blackwell, a stranger who is charming, evasive and extremely good at reading her. His price for guiding her through is ten years of her life, which is the sort of bargain that looks reasonable only while the alternative is dying. He knows more about the mansion and about Ophelia than he is willing to say, and the two of them have to decide how much of the other's account to believe.

The book is the opening volume of a series set around the same contest, and it is written as a romance as much as a survival story. Smith establishes the house, the rules of the game and the pair of leads who spend it relying on each other, and further Phantasma novels continue from there.