Principal, Praya
Vivienne Ho
She takes the chair with its back to the window: the worst seat for the light and the best one for everything else. Nobody argues.
The premise
The most composed woman in any boardroom in Hong Kong does not exist.
Vivienne Ho is a socialite and a financier, principal of a firm that buys businesses other people would strip and keeps them alive. She has spent five years building this life so completely it became real to her. She has always known it must eventually break.
Damien Tang, a Hong Kong financier, wants to marry her. His family’s due diligence and a very old institution’s reawakened interest arrive in the same season, aimed at the same woman.
What follows is a hunt, a courtship and the audit of a life, in a season where being known is more dangerous than being found.
Protagonists
Two people, one season
The public record only. The rest of the cast keeps to the book.
Tang Group
Damien Tang
He has never in his life had to be ready to leave a room quickly. He loses the deal, and the loss is what makes him look properly.
Read a sample
“In a tower on Des Voeux Road, thirty-eight floors above the Hong Kong traffic, Vivienne had come to buy a container terminal from a family that had not yet admitted it was selling.”
The sample is Chapter One. The rest of the novel is in the complete editions.
The song
Somewhere With Nobody In It
A duet: his verses say what he wants, and hers only what she does.
Or play the full track here.
Lyrics by Lacunae. Out now on Spotify.
Publication
Coming 1 November 2026
Pantheon is finished: 63 chapters, book one of three.
Kindle Unlimited
Included from release day
The whole novel at no extra cost, on any device with the Kindle app. Kindle-only for now; if that changes, this page will say so.
Read on Kindle Unlimited
Online sample
Read the opening
Chapter One only, in the web reader, with adjustable typography.
Open the reader
Early copies
Free before release
Readers can claim a review copy on Booksprout until 23 October. Reviewers, librarians and book bloggers can request one on NetGalley until 11 October.
Content guidance
Before you begin
Pantheon is an adult romantic conspiracy thriller. It contains explicit sexual content, on-page violence, grief and bereavement, institutional coercion, and deception inside intimate relationships. Complete guidance, including chapter-level notes, ships with every edition of the book.
The author
Who writes this
Lacunae writes love stories about people who are very good at dangerous work. She likes them best at the point where being good at it stops being enough.
She writes in two shapes. Pantheon is a romantic conspiracy thriller, the first of three, about a woman who used to kill for a living and has spent five years making sure nobody looks at her twice, and the man who will not stop looking. Perpetūra is five interconnected stories across five centuries, published as two books and also readable free as an interactive novel.
Both are self-published, and both are written in the evenings around a full-time job.