Orphaned at a young age and forever scarred by the boating accident that stripped her of her family, Claire has lived her life at a certain remove. She has walled off her emotions, living a half-life where nothing hurts, friends are fun but disposable, and love is a foreign concept. But that all changed when she met Elias. 

Handsome and confident, Elias was born into the family behind Ashbury Marinography, a state-of-the-art ocean research and development company that has become a household name…for a certain kind of household --- specifically the kind that considers space travel a vacation and boasts a fleet of Cybertrucks in their garage. With this fame and notoriety has come enormous wealth, and though Elias is essentially estranged from his family, he is not estranged from his trust fund. When their relationship takes off as naturally as if it was preordained, and Elias offers to care for her, Claire believes that she finally has found love and a way to fill the void left by her late family.

So you can imagine how Claire feels when she receives the call that Elias has suffered an aneurysm and died. She is certainly shocked but also, in the deepest corners of her psyche, resigned. Loss is something she knows all too well. Despite his perfect-on-paper persona, Elias could be a bit aloof and mercurial. Though the couple had been engaged for nearly two years, he always pushed off talks of wedding planning and refused to let her meet his family. Knowing little of his upbringing except that it was dysfunctional, Claire never pushed too far. But now, with Elias gone, she worries that she’ll never be part of a family unit again. Until she receives an email from his mother, Audrey, inviting her to a wake at their family home, Harrow Point, on a private island.

"RELIQUARY announces Whitten as a standout new voice in horror. It serves as a poignant reminder never to allow yourself to become small and manageable, and to always be unrepentant in your grief and its power to heal."

Claire meets the Ashbury patriarch, Wellington; his older son, Ash; Audrey; and Elias’ uncles and their wives. Unaccustomed to the ways of rich, privileged WASPs and the strange pseudofeudal framework in which they operate, Claire can brush away how they discuss their grief. They never once admit to their own sorrow, but they frequently acknowledge hers. What she truly can’t wrap her head around is Harrow Point itself. Nestled into the island’s craggy cliffs, it presents as a castle above ground, and its yard is populated with dozens of houses “for the staff.” But the family chooses to live in the home’s waterlocked basement, and aside from the odd chauffeur or chef, Claire never spots any members of the staff.

Meeting the family is always a little awkward, but the Ashburys are unique. They’re quick to shower Claire with expensive gifts and reiterate how much they want her to be part of their family. But they also don’t hesitate to dismiss any talk of the reason that she is there in the first place: Elias. Ash attempts to balk at their customs and rituals, always seeming to hint to Claire that something is not what it appears to be. The spouses of Elias’ uncles, outsiders like her, also seems a hair removed from the family’s odd, Stepford-like perfection. With every question or statement, Claire catches a subtext she can’t quite read, which starts to feel an awful lot like a series of escape hatches. 

As the family continues to welcome Claire into Harrow Point and the Ashbury business, she discovers rituals both familiar and bizarre. For example, couples are encouraged to have their weddings at the family estate, but they also are obligated to spend their wedding night on the family submarine, which is creepy and a little voyeuristic. More and more, Claire gets the sense that the Ashburys don't just want her to feel welcome or comfortable enough to mourn Elias. They want her, and they’re willing to sacrifice anyone and anything to make sure that happens.

In RELIQUARY, Hannah Whitten has combined all the gothic horror elements that readers love --- a tragic orphan, a remote castle, and family secrets that just won’t stay buried --- with her trademark talent for weaving haunting, atmospheric imagery with plotlines full of political machinations and deeply personal grief. In Claire, Whitten has penned an “anti–final girl,” someone who is not hardwired to survive, but rather to go with the motions, to essentially play dead and let the vultures pick her over. So soft that she’s been forced to make her own armor, Claire is desperation personified, and that has made her a target for the Ashbury family and the dark secret they’ve been sworn to protect. 

But in Whitten’s deft hands, Claire is no victim, either. To survive the Ashburys, she has to discover that learning to let people in and remain upright is a super power every bit as strong as denial…and maybe even stronger. This is no small feat, and it involves basically rewiring her entire nervous system, all while dodging the off-the-wall rituals of the family who already has sunk their teeth into her. 

Whitten dovetails this heroine’s journey with thoughtful, sometimes tongue-in-cheek takedowns of wealth and power and their trappings. This is especially true in her writing of Ash, the prodigal son, a bad man who has convinced himself that he is good simply because he is not as bad as others. Paired together, Claire and Ash form the book’s heart, demonstrating the different ways that we can fall into our own delusions and denial, and the power that comes in facing ourselves --- and our guilt --- head-on.

Readers of Whitten’s For the Wolf duology will find her first journey into horror an easily accessible one, and fans of the genre will delight in her willingness to go there, tentacles and all. RELIQUARY announces Whitten as a standout new voice in horror. It serves as a poignant reminder never to allow yourself to become small and manageable, and to always be unrepentant in your grief and its power to heal.