I've been sitting on this news for what feels like a very long time, so it's a genuine relief to finally say it out loud: Book One of The Thornhaven Mysteries, The Unmarked, is out now!

The dead don't always stay buried.
Some of them just need someone to listen.

The Unmarked introduces Dr Tess Ashburn, a forensic anthropologist with a gift she never asked for and can't quite explain, who comes home to Tasmania's Tasman Peninsula and finds the past waiting for her. Thornhaven sits on ground with a long memory: the convict history of Van Diemen's Land is never far beneath the surface here, and neither are the people it swallowed and never accounted for. Tess's present-day case and a voice from that convict era run side by side through the whole book, each one shaping how you read the other.

This is my debut series, and Thornhaven is a place I've been carrying around in my head for a long time. It means more than I can easily say to finally be sharing it.

The Unmarked is out now, at special introductory prices, in Kindle $1.40 AUD (99c USD) and paperback $18.61 AUD ($12.99 USD).

And this is only the beginning. The rest of Tess's story is already written, all seven books, so there won't be a long wait between cases. Here's what's coming between now and Christmas:

• Book Two, The Faithful — 13 August

• Book Three, The Stolen — 3 September

• Book Four, The Deep — 24 September

• Book Five, The Ledger — 15 October

• Book Six, The Claimant — 5 November

• Book Seven, The Cormorant — 26 November

A new case roughly every three weeks, right through to the holidays, ending with the whole series complete in time for Christmas reading. I'll be popping back here with more as each one lands, along with the odd Thornhaven aside along the way.

Thank you for being here for the start of it. If you read The Unmarked, I'd love to know what you thought, and if the peninsula gets under your skin the way it did mine, Book Two isn't far away at all.

Lissa

Find The Thornhaven Mysteries on Amazon, and come back here for updates as each new case is released. 

Last week, a box arrived on my doorstep, and inside it was the first physical copy of The Unmarked, Book One of The Thornhaven Mysteries. I've spent so long living inside this story, inside Tess's world, inside Thornhaven itself, that seeing it as an actual book, something with weight and pages and a cover you can hold, was an incredibly exciting moment!

This book started as an idea sparked by a handful of trips to Tasmania and years of digging through my own family's history, and it has grown into something so much bigger than I ever expected. Getting to this point, from a first messy draft to a finished, printed novel, has been the most rewarding thing I've ever done, and I'm so grateful to everyone who has cheered this project on along the way.

The Unmarked will be available on Amazon very soon, and I can't wait to finally share Tess, Thornhaven, and everything buried beneath it with readers. 

I'll post the exact release date the moment it's confirmed, so keep an eye on this page (or better yet, join the newsletter or ARC team) so you're the first to know.

Thank you for being here for the beginning of this journey. There are six more books coming, and I couldn't be more excited for what's ahead.