I’m happy to share some great news just before Christmas: the first draft of my new novel, The Daughters of Autumn, is now complete.
As with Trash Things, this book is aimed at a younger audience. The protagonist is eleven-year-old Zorka, whose parents take her to spend the autumn break with her great-grandparents in a remote, dead-end village called Keserves. Zorka has no desire to stay there: everything smells old, and nothing exciting ever happens. But she has no choice.
One day, while following a cat, she wanders off into the forest and stumbles upon an abandoned castle. That alone wouldn’t be especially strange—except that the castle does not seem to be uninhabited. In its library, Zorka encounters a girl about her own age named Borbála… whose eyes are nothing but empty craters.
As the girls’ fates slowly become entwined, Borbála begins to tell Zorka a strange and terrifying story. If Zorka wants to hear how it ends, she must complete a series of tasks—none of which are without danger.
The Daughters of Autumn explores themes of childhood fears and abandonment, set within a closed, rural microcosm. While the story is grounded in realism, fantastical and horror elements gradually emerge as the narrative unfolds. Readers who enjoyed Coraline by Neil Gaiman, or The Thief of Always by Clive Barker, will almost certainly find something to love here as well.