The Academy is the debut collaborative novel from bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand and her daughter, Shelby Cunningham, published by Little, Brown and Company (Hachette Book Group) on September 16, 2025. This hardcover edition retails for $30.00 and is the first book in The Academy Series.

Set at the fictional Tiffin Academy, a prestigious New England boarding school in northwest Massachusetts, the story begins on move-in day with a stunning announcement: Tiffin has leapt seventeen spots to become the number two boarding school in America according to the national rankings. Nobody quite believes it — the dorms need renovation, the sports teams consistently lose, and the school is better known for its social scene than its academics. But the campus is beautiful, class sizes are intimate, and a acclaimed New York chef runs the dining hall.

The celebration is short-lived. A mysterious new app called ZipZap begins broadcasting anonymous blind items to every phone on campus, and suddenly nobody is safe. The drama centers on a sprawling cast including Davi Banerjee, a TikTok influencer and reigning queen bee; Charley Hicks, a transfer student from Maryland who refuses to play social games; Simone Bergeron, the new and surprisingly young history teacher with secrets of her own; and Cordelia Spooner, the school's idiosyncratic admissions director. Over the course of one school year, bonds form and shatter, secrets surface, and the lives of students and staff are changed forever.

Inspired by Shelby Cunningham's own boarding school experiences at St. George's School in Middletown, Rhode Island, the novel blends adult drama with authentic teen perspective. It has been compared to Gossip Girl and is in development with a major streaming platform. A sequel, tentatively titled The Thoroughbreds, is planned to continue the story through graduation.