My Sister’s Bones

War reporter Kate Rafter, the narrator of Ellwood’s affecting debut, is more comfortable with mortar shells dropping in Aleppo and Fallujah than she is back in London, freshly returned from an assignment in Syria that has left her with nightmares and hallucinations. Kate got word of her mother’s death too late to make the funeral, thanks to her alcoholic younger sister. She comes home to seaside Herne Bay in Kent to a house empty, except for memories of a miserable childhood with her alcoholic father, who beat her mother and blamed his wife for the death of Kate’s brother. Chapters devoted to a long police interrogation of Kate for an unknown offense make it clear that her mental state is not what it should be. She becomes convinced she’s seen a little boy in her garden, raising the question of whether Kate’s losing touch with reality or something more sinister is happening. Ellwood portrays the horror of witnessing war in a compelling psychological thriller. Agent: Madeleine Milburn, Madeleine Milburn Literary, TV & Film Agency (U.K.). (July)