Castle Knoll Files Series

Kristen Perrin is back with the second novel in her Castle Knoll series. Annie Adams is caught in a new web of murder that spans decades, returning us to the idyllic English village that holds layers of secrets.

Present day: Annie Adams is just settling into life in Castle Knoll when local fortune teller Peony Lane crosses her path and shares a cryptic message. When Peony Lane is found dead only hours later inside the locked Gravesdown Estate, Annie quickly realizes that someone is out to make her look guilty while silencing Peony at the same time. Annie has no choice but to delve into the dark secrets of Castle Knoll in order to find out just what Peony Lane was trying to warn her about, before the new life she’s just begun to build comes crashing down around her.

1967: A year has passed since her friend Emily disappeared, and teenage Frances Adams finds herself caught between two men. Ford Gravesdown is one of the only remaining members of a family known for its wealth and dubious uses of power. Archie Foyle is a local who can’t hold down a job and lives above the village pub. But when Frances teams up with Archie to investigate the car crash that claimed the lives of Ford’s family, it quickly becomes clear that this was no accident—hints of cover-ups, lies, and betrayals abound. The question is, just how far does the blackness creep through the heart of Castle Knoll? When Frances uncovers secrets kept by both Ford and Archie, she starts to wonder: What exactly has she gotten herself into?

A Jimmy Fallon’s Book Club Finalist for 2024

AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist

A GMA Buzz Pick!

One of Amazon’s Top 10 Best Books of April, One of Jimmy Fallon’s favorite books for Spring 2024, The Top LibraryReads pick for March 2024, A Publishers Marketplace 2024 BuzzBook | One of NPR’s Books We Love

Named most anticipated by: Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, BookRiot, BookBub, The Nerd Daily, Shelf Reflection, Novel Suspects, Borrow Read Repeat, The Everygirl, The Scout Guide, The Real Book Spy

For fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club, an enormously fun mystery about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate…. Now it’s up to her great-niece to catch the killer.

It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be.
 
In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?
 
As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.