It Took the Children First

IT TOOK THE CHILDREN FIRST: Book One of The Maplewood Horrors

The house didn't just sell for cheap. It waited.

When the Rickman family flees their past for a fresh start in the secluded town of Maplewood, they think they've found a lifeline. Thorne House is grand, decaying, and priced impossibly low. But houses like Thorne don't just offer shelter—they harvest history.

For fifteen-year-old twins Jenny and Nicholas, the nightmare begins before they even unpack. It starts with a locked door that opens on its own. Then come the whispers in the walls, the phantom memories of a town with blood under its fingernails, and finally, the girl at the threshold: soaked, terrified, and begging for a life that was stolen three nights ago.

Kirsty Hollings is missing. But inside Thorne House, she is very much present—and she isn't the only thing the dark has trapped.

As corrupt local authorities circle the family to protect decades of buried sins, Jenny and Nicholas realise they haven't just moved to a new town. They are walking straight into a thirty-year-old pact. Deep beneath the floorboards, a parasitic entity known as the Ferryman has awoken to collect the town's debts.

And the Rickmans are the currency.

Blending the atmospheric claustrophobia of Shirley Jackson with the modern, bone-chilling dread of The Haunting of Hill House and The Twisted Ones, It Took the Children First is a visceral exploration of the rot beneath community facades and the terrifying elasticity of the human body. A haunting supernatural thriller about family survival, inherited secrets, and the monsters that wear our neighbours' faces.

Some doors shouldn't be opened. Especially when they open themselves.

Perfect for fans of Stephen King, Paul Tremblay, and Catriona Ward.