A fire-scarred ranch in the Colorado Rockies takes in runaway children and asks nothing up front. Catriona Ward turns that sanctuary into a horror novel with Peter Pan in its bones.

Readical Key Points

• A USA Today bestseller, according to the publisher.
• Starred review from Publishers Weekly; also reviewed in Booklist and Library Journal.
• Draws on Peter Pan and Lord of the Flies, as the publisher describes it, and moves between timelines and narrators.
• Hardcover from Tor Nightfire, published February 24, 2026; 304 pages.
• Content note: children in danger, a troubled family and violence.

Riley and Oliver, a sister and brother, slip out of an unhappy home at night and head for Nowhere, a ranch once owned by an eccentric movie star and now held by a closed circle of runaways. Freedom looks close. Then the burned ground and the group's guarded rules begin to show what shelter there costs. Ward tells the story across more than one timeline and point of view, and keeps the reader unsure which account to trust.

This is the Tor Nightfire hardcover. It suits horror readers who like dread built slowly from place and memory, and readers drawn to dark retellings of childhood stories. At Nowhere, every shelter stands on ground that has already burned.

About the Author

Catriona Ward read English at Oxford and later took a master's in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. She has three times received the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel, for The Girl from Rawblood, Little Eve and The Last House on Needless Street. Little Eve additionally took the Shirley Jackson Award, and Sundial received the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Hardcover Novel.

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