COVER REVEAL: IN THE BONES + First Chapter Sneak Peek & ARC Giveaway!

Get the first look — plus the opening that sets everything in motion...

Hello Thriller Thursday!

A few years ago, I watched a documentary series about phrogging. If you’re not familiar with that term, it means secretly living in somebody’s (occupied!) house. Besides triggering months of nightmares, the show got me wondering what might compel a person to skulk in someone else’s attic, basement, or walls. That led to another question: What secrets might they accidentally uncover while hiding in a house?

This is where the inspiration for IN THE BONES came from. It will be published on November 4^th, and I’m so excited to share it with you—starting with the cover.

And so, here it is… the official cover of In the Bones!

A Little About the Book

In the Bones is a twisty, multi-POV thriller about a strange string of thefts on a remote peninsula in the Thousand Islands, and a long-hidden secret that chills to the bone. It’s also the first installment of the brand new North Country series, with a second book coming in Fall of 2026.

If you loved Tana French’s Broken Harbor and HBO’s Mare of Easttown, this book is for you.

First Look: Chapter One (Exclusive Sneak Peek)

Note: You won’t find this anywhere else! This exclusive excerpt is just for Thriller Thursday readers!

ONE

Nicole

When Nicole Durham heard that renovations on the house were nearly complete, she did what any enterprising person would do and took her old eighteen-foot Grady-White on the water. It wasn’t stalking if she wore a sun hat and a smile as she coasted by. The late spring air was an embrace delivered with cold hands, the waves that jumped the boat’s gunwale to freckle her skin like needles, but her easy stance and rollneck sweater said she was simply another woman on a leisure cruise along the St. Lawrence, where the river met the lake. A summer person, maybe. Just like him.

She’d been keeping an eye on the house for weeks, monitoring the progress. In March, a crew had erected a six-foot privacy fence along the property line. At first, the work had all been indoors. Trucks and vans came and went carrying custom windows, sheet rock, tile. The landscaping was next, an army of masons shaping serpentine stone walls that now brimmed with fat-bloomed roses. Last week, a hulking appliance truck had parked adjacent to the front door. That was when Nicole knew he was close to moving in.

“Think he’s single?” she’d asked Stacy on the phone that same morning. “Bachelorhood would be convenient.” Especially since Nicole knew the guy had money to burn.

“He’s not married, I know that.” It was Stacy Peel who’d sold the man the waterfront farmhouse that he’d poured a fortune into renovating, adding countless upgrades to make it his own. When Nicole had exhausted her friend’s stores of knowledge, she’d turned to Google.

“There isn’t much about his personal life,” she’d reported. “It’s all just hockey stuff.” Ex-NHL player with the Washington Capitals. Well-respected winger, if a little rowdy on—and off—the ice. Nicole clocked every fine, suspension, and media controversy she found online, forging new neural pathways just for him. He’d purchased the house the previous September with plans to move in May, before Memorial Day.

“I need this,” she’d told Stacy when she saw that truck.

“It’s different this time,” Stacy had replied. “He isn’t your average seasonal resident.”

Nicole had pleaded then. “Come on. For me.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d looked to her friend for help. Every now and then, Nicole would blow out her hair, put on a nice dress, and tag along on one of Stacy’s showings. Masquerading as an interested party required cunning, and that—so different from her everyday life—was something Nicole enjoyed. That, plus the food. What was it about those tiny cubes of cheese and plastic cups of room-temperature chardonnay? The fresh-baked cookies intended to make the place smell homey for the open house? Nicole could make a meal of those visits, sometimes did, and in exchange she’d talk up Stacy’s real estate listings. “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for,” she’d tell prospective buyers. “You don’t see places like this every day.” And when an offer was made and accepted, Stacy would repay Nicole by recommending her services. Most of the time, the scheme worked in both their favors. The new owners never remembered Nicole, once she’d shed her costume in favor of a ponytail and sweats. She’d gotten good at pretending.

This client would be her biggest challenge yet.

Now, as she bobbed on the waves in search of stray construction vehicles—she saw none—Nicole spotted someone in the water. Slick-haired and shirtless, he ascended the ladder at the end of the dock with water sluicing off his taut skin. The peninsula homes in Cape Vincent, New York were separated from the river by a dead-end road leading northeast to the village and southwest to Tibbetts Point, but the dock was directly across from the house. It had to be him.

Nicole’s dark hair whipped her cheeks as she watched the man shake off droplets of water and reach for the towel that waited on the decking. The wind was sharp, the lashing violent. Her teeth chattered. Where she wasn’t covered up, her skin was coarse with goosebumps. Nicole barely noticed.

It was finally time to meet Mikko Helle.

Share your thoughts for a chance to win an ARC of In the Bones!

What do you think of the cover and first chapter? Leave a comment for a chance to win an advanced reader copy of In the Bones!

What’s Next?

In the Bones will be released on November 4^th, 2025 and is available for preorder in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook now.

Bookshop.org

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

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I hope you enjoy your trip to the North Country!

All my best,

Tessa