Author: Tara Goedjen
Publication: Atria/Emily Bestler Books (October 13, 2026)
Description: After a true crime podcast reopens her cousin’s murder case, a woman must confront her past at a glamorous European castle where she follows a trail of toxic family secrets and deadly lies in this “addictive, atmospheric” (Tiffany Crum, New York Times bestselling author), gothic-tinged thriller perfect for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware.
When they were teenagers, Mia’s beloved cousin was murdered during their stay at an infamous castle in the Austrian Alps. As the only witness, Mia’s testimony put the killer behind bars, but it tore her life apart: the media accused her aunt, a controversial true crime author, of being involved. Now, a decade later, the murderer is appealing his conviction, and a popular true crime podcast starts covering the case, determined to exonerate him, and resurfacing lies about Mia’s family in the process.
Desperate to protect her aunt—and what she knows to be the truth—Mia returns to Austria. The castle is being revamped as a luxury hotel, and Mia gets a job as a nanny for the new owner, hiding in plain sight as she investigates, needing to set the story straight once and for all. But after someone mysteriously disappears on the property and sinister new evidence emerges regarding her cousin’s death, she realizes she might have accused the wrong man...and put her own life in danger.
My Thoughts: Mia takes a job as a nanny to a 6-year-old whose mother is reopening a castle in the Austrian Alps as a boutique hotel. Mia knows the hotel. Her aunt went there with her and her cousin Tristan to write her latest true crime book about the murder of a daughter of the house in 1969.
Her cousin was murdered and Mia was the only witness to the owner of the hotel's crime. He was convicted and imprisoned. Mia and her aunt went home but their relationship crumbled leading them to have separate lives.
Now, a popular podcast is talking about Tristan's murder again and accusing her aunt of being the real killer. Mia needs to find out the truth and travels to the castle under her new name.
Many of the players who were there at the time of the murder are still there or there again. Mia finds herself exploring the castle and seeing visions that may or may not help her find out what really happened.
Surrounding Mia's story in the present is the aunt's story from the time of her son's murder as she too found herself seeing visions and also found herself unable to write the dead heiress's story. She was consumed with a fiction story that told about her son's death.
This was a twisty, spooky story about looking back into the past and trying to unravel what is real and what is not.
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