Welcome to my 2025 ONC entry, The Dead Write Their Epitaphs.

Cœur fidèle.

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In the dark heart of 19th-century France's reign, where print is tightly regulated, dissent is dangerous, and women are expected to yield, Rosalie Bellecourt refuses to be complicit. She runs a hidden all-female book club beneath her father's publishing company in a veiled library, allowing liberationists from all over France to partake.

Mireille Azéma, a daughter of the upper-class, believes all women should be allowed to learn to read - and that all citizens should be permitted to do as they please. When she catches wind of Rosalie's secret book club, she begins to send books of her own to support Rosalie's endeavor, writing notes in the margins until Rosalie invites her to join the club.

When the two uncover a book filled with handwritten notes from the missing bookseller Geneviève, they discover Rosalie was not the first to begin a resistance. But as the members of Rosalie's book club start dying one by one - mysteriously and violently - she realizes Geneviève's disappearance was no accident. She had been compiling a list of informants within the resistance, and now someone is determined to erase her legacy, along with those who seek to uncover the truth.

With time running out and the books bleeding red, Rosalie and Mireille must risk everything to figure out the mystery behind Geneviève's vanishment and expose the deadly betrayal in their midst, or become the next names erased from history.

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Main Prompt

109. In secret, a group of women forms a book club during the ban on reading. As they sneak around town exchanging books, they form unexpected friendships, navigate their love lives, and uncover hidden strengths and passions.

Side Prompts

23. Two young LGBTQIAP writers discover a hidden library and begin leaving each other messages in the margins of a forbidden book. As their bond grows stronger, they face a dangerous question: Will they risk everything for a love the world refuses to accept?

31. Next time, ask yourself if your integrity can withstand the truth.

56. You return home late one night only to find it's no longer your house. Nothing is as it seems.

66. It's not a mystery — it's the walls. They hold secrets, but what are they hiding?

77. In a world where art and entertainment are forbidden, you're born to challenge the system and change the world.

91. No one believes you. But you are the only one who can solve this mystery — for all of them.

110. 20 days of freedom.

129. "The ink of our souls binds us beyond the pages of time."

130. "Protect this with your life."

131. "This girl is on fire."

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❧ I'm carrying on my one-year tradition of writing historical fiction for ONC. And, you guessed it, it's another murder mystery. How I came up with that in relation to my prompts, I have no idea, but...

❧ This is a fun blend of genres: historical fiction, romance, and mystery. I didn't do any romance with Blight on Magic because I decided to make my main character aroace. This time, my main character is getting her romance, and it'll be SAPPHIC!

❧ This was mostly inspired by my desire to write something in Europe. It was a bit difficult to pinpoint an exact time and place, as I wanted it to be a more recent time, but restrictions on literature were relatively lax going into the mid-1850s. This story takes place in the early 19th-century.

❧ This is my third time competing in ONC! I skipped last year as I just wasn't feeling it and I took a break from Wattpad (originally a permanent leave, although I'm not posting much on here anymore). So, I could've been writing this on a streak, but if I remember correctly, I wasn't feeling any prompts last year anyways. When I saw the library prompts this year, something clicked!

❧ I was originally going to write a Skyrim fanfiction this year, but 1) I didn't know how well fanfiction would do in an ambassador contest, 2) none of the prompts were great for the idea I had in store, and 3) the idea of The Dead Write Their Epitaphs felt a lot more compelling when I started to mull it over.

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Text copyright © Zoe Alamort™ 2025

The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. This story is published subject to the condition that it shall not be reproduced or retransmitted in whole or in part, in any manner, without the written consent of the copyright holder, and any infringement of this is a violation of copyright law.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

When the law demands silence, the heart learns to shout.