Avril Island

The Lovely Bones meets the island-set, locked-room suspense of And Then There Were None in this debut psychological thriller that alternates between the living and the dead.

Aided by the ghost of her dead sister, a woman investigates her family’s pastâ€"and uncovers the strange, dark history of the island they own.

Idyllic Avril lsland, owned by the Bennett family, where their 100-year-old cottage sat nestled in acres of forest . . . Forty-year-old June Bennett believed that the island had been sold after her father disappeared when she was only 12. It’s not until her older sister’s shocking death in a fatal car accident that June discovers the cottage was never sold. Avril Island is still owned by the Bennett familyâ€"and now it’s hers.

Still reeling from the grief of losing her sister, June travels back to Avril lsland in search of answers. As she digs, she learns that the townspeople believe her father may in fact have been murdered rather than having abandoned his family in the dead of night, as she was led to believe by her mother. And that’s when she begins to notice strange things happening on the islandâ€"missing family possessions showing up, doors locking on their own, unexplained noises in the night, shadowy figures disappearing into the woods.

It takes June no time at all to realize that her childhood summers at Avril Island were not at all what they had seemed to be . . . in this psychological thriller debut about grief, loss, and the secrets families keep.