The Daughters
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Mar 17, 2026
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
A grieving archivist uncovers a strange connection between recent disappearances and a small New York town’s history of witch trials in this new thriller from the author of The Bequest.
Reeling from the dual deaths of her estranged father and ex-fiancé, Genevieve Tompkins has dropped out of her PhD program in New York City and is looking for a chance to start over in Wilton Springs, a faded Victorian spa town in upstate New York. Utilizing her background as an archivist, she is hired to catalogue the papers of the prominent Wilton family, who trace their lineage back to the founders of the town. But as she digs into their records, Genevieve discovers that the family’s pharmaceutical business and their personal lives have been fraught with a history of tragedy. She also uncovers a series of disturbing disappearances and suspicious deaths among the women of the town.
Three centuries earlier, Wilton Springs was the site of a brutal witch trial–a fact which someone has gone to extreme lengths to erase from historical record. As Genevieve explores the connections between the modern disappearances and the town’s ugly past, she becomes entangled in a web of conspiracy, where the line between superstition and reality begins to blur, and she fears she may become the next woman to go missing from Wilton Springs. . .
Blending elements of Gothic fiction and folk horror, The Daughters is a literary thriller that will keep readers guessing how the mysteries of the distant past may reverberate and resurface in the sinister and atmospheric present.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Margaret (The Bequest) stumbles with this tangled mystery about a grieving archivist who researches the connection between a town's historic witch trials and several recent deaths. Genevieve Tompkins drops out of her PhD program and moves to a tiny spa town in Upstate New York after the back-to-back deaths of her estranged father and her ex-fiancé. There, she's hired as an archivist by the prominent Wilton family and tasked with cataloging their papers, many of which date back to the town's founding in the 1700s and detail a series of brutal witch trials. As Genevieve settles in, a local woman vanishes, the latest in a long string of suspicious disappearances in the area. Genevieve kicks her curiosity up a notch when her friend vanishes next, and uncovers a link between the Wilton family's pharmaceutical business and the missing women that might date all the way back to the witch trials. The truth turns out to be far darker than Genevieve initially imagined, forcing her to rethink her relationships altogether. Marred by erratic pacing and clunky dialogue, the narrative squanders its early intrigue and resolves with a series of baffling revelations that confuse rather than exhilarate. This misses the mark.