What the Bones Know: The new 2026 debut contemporary gothic psychological horror, perfect for fans of...

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Kirstyn McDermott

What the Bones Know

Name: What the Bones Know
Price: 32.99 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9781038922762

The new 2026 debut contemporary gothic psychological horror, perfect for fans of Riley Sager...

Kirstyn McDermott

$32.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

QTY:

English

Harper Collins
24 February 2026

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Thriller & suspense; Horror & ghost stories; Fiction: special features; Australian Fiction

A child's bones, a lost girl, a mind adrift - sometimes what is lost comes back to haunt you...from an award-winning author comes a contemporary gothic tale of guilt, grief and redemption.

In the village of Kiln Creek in the Victorian Highlands, a ghost gum falls in a storm. Tangled in its roots are the bones of a small child and the tattered remains of her clothing, including a pair of bright-red sneakers.

Single mum Jude Mees is in her early forties and struggling to get her business off the ground while raising her ten-year-old daughter, Katie, and managing a fractious relationship with her controlling ex-husband. But when Jude learns that her mother, Nance, who still lives alone on the family property at Kiln Creek, is showing troubling signs of dementia, she has no option other than to return and check on her.

And indeed, all is not well at the farm. Nance is slowly drifting off into her own world, and there are other disturbing occurrences. Strange smells, inexplicably wet footprints, a voice in the night. As her daughter starts to sleepwalk and Jude's nightmares take over her days, she begins to wonder whether her imagination is out of control or if something more sinister is happening ...

A taut, claustrophobic exploration of what it means to be haunted - by our past, by fractured relationships, by a place we thought we knew and by our own unreliable memories.

By: Kirstyn McDermott
Imprint: Harper Collins
Country of Publication: Australia
ISBN: 9781038922762
ISBN 10: 1038922763
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 24 February 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Kirstyn McDermott is an Australian author of two award-winning novels, Madigan Mine and Perfections, along with numerous pieces of short fiction and poetry. Her most recent works are Winterbloom (winner of 2023 Aurealis Award for best fantasy novella), Hard Places, a collection of short fiction, and Never Afters, a novella series of retold fairy tales now collected in an omnibus edition. Kirstyn holds a PhD in creative writing and lives in Ballarat, Australia, with fellow writer Jason Nahrung and two distinctly non-literary felines. www.kirstynmcdermott.com