A chilling horror-thriller debut where a mother’s search for her missing daughter battles against the shadows of a historic, dangerous legend.

Single mother Jenna arrives on the tranquil shores of Athelsea fueled by the desperate hope to find Chloe, her teenage daughter who’s disappeared from their London home. She has no idea why–all she knows is that Chloe had changed in the previous two weeks, haunted by something, or someone, and the ferry ticket here is the only clue she has.

As she explores the village and interacts with the locals, Jenna soon realizes a macabre secret is being hidden in plain sight. A dark legend of a vengeful woman called the Bone Queen is spoken of in hushed tones amongst the villagers, some of whom are frantically trying to suppress the tale that has long terrorized their lives.

As Jenna starts to learn more about the Bone Queen and her previous victims, the village’s grip on reality begins to loosen and no one can say for sure who, or what, is responsible for the deaths and disappearances on Athelsea. Suffering from what she can no longer distinguish between paranoid hallucinations or real manifestations, Jenna must act quickly before Chloe is next…

The Bone Queen has left her mark, and one day she’ll collect.

I received an advance copy of this audiobook courtesy of the publisher. All thoughts are my own.

This is a book I really wanted to love. The ingredients are all there. Strong writing. Genuinely creepy moments. A moody setting. And a dark urban legend at the center of it all. I love a good urban legend, especially when it’s woven into a modern psychological horror story. Unfortunately, this one never quite clicked for me, and the reason has less to do with execution and more to do with familiarity.

The story follows Jenna, a single mother who arrives on the isolated island of Athelsea in a desperate attempt to find her missing teenage daughter, Chloe. Chloe vanished from their London home under mysterious circumstances, and the only clue left behind is a ferry ticket to this quiet, insular village. Jenna quickly realizes that the locals are hiding something. There’s a legend whispered about in hushed tones. A vengeful figure known as the Bone Queen.

Atmospherically, the book works. Athelsea feels claustrophobic and unsettling, and the sense that something is wrong seeps into the story early. Shindler does a good job blurring the line between reality and paranoia. There are moments here that are legitimately creepy and effective.

The problem, for me, is that I felt like I’ve read this story before. While listening to this, I couldn’t stop thinking about C.J. Cooke’s “The Book of Witching”. The similarities are hard to ignore. A missing daughter. A mother desperate to find her. A body. An isolated location steeped in folklore. An urban legend centered around a witch-like figure. I’m not saying this is a knockoff, but there are enough shared elements that I found myself predicting the plot well in advance.

Because of that familiarity, the book hit every expected beat. There were very few surprises along the way, and tension that should have escalated instead felt muted because I could see where things were headed. Knowing the likely outcome didn’t ruin the story outright, but it did keep me at a distance. I never fully sank into the narrative the way I wanted to, because my brain was always a step ahead, waiting for confirmations rather than discoveries.

This is frustrating, because I do think there’s talent here. The prose is solid. The pacing is steady. In another context, or for a reader who hasn’t encountered a similar story before, this might land very differently. For me, though, the sense of déjà vu was impossible to shake.

I listened to this entirely on audiobook, and the narration by Tamsin Kennard was good. She handled the character voices well and maintained the eerie tone without overdoing it. The audio production didn’t detract from the experience, and in some ways, it helped sustain the atmosphere even when my engagement wavered.

Ultimately, this is a competent, moody horror novel with a strong sense of place and some genuinely unsettling moments. It just didn’t surprise me. If you enjoy folk horror, urban legends, and stories about mothers searching for lost children, this may work much better for you, especially if you’re coming to it fresh. For me, the similarities to another recent read kept this from being the immersive experience I was hoping for.