With terror mounting in 1940 London, thousands of "Guest Children" were evacuated out of England to escape the bombings. Two of those children, Michael and Frances Hawksby, were never seen again. Randall Sturgess, who avoided the draft to look after his troubled younger brother, is hired to find them - a journey that takes him to an isolated resort in a remote corner of northern Ontario. There, he discovers the secretive couple who initially took in the young Hawksbys, along with their collection of strange, seemingly permanent guests. But there’s still no sign of the children. Plagued by vivid nightmares and a persistent feeling he’s being watched, Randall’s certain something terrible has happened to them, linked to a spectral presence he senses around the lodge and in the dense forest surrounding them. Vividly atmospheric, layered and twisty, The Guest Children is sure to appeal to fans of Shutter Island and The Others.
Release Date: August 12th, 2025
Advance praise for The Guest Children
“Combining the childhood otherworlds of C.S. Lewis, the dark horror of Stephen King, and the psychological gothic of Shirley Jackson, The Guest Children is a novel at once unsettling and deeply moving. Patrick Tarr's debut presents as a haunted house story (of a sort) -- and it is -- but takes the reader to unexpected corners of the heart where both buried grief and our most constant attachments reside. Uncommonly well-written, gripping, deliciously entertaining, this is a book that will not only carry you away, but return you to a forgotten place within yourself.”
— Andrew Pyper, author of Oracle and The Demonologist
"Eerie, atmospheric, and wonderfully original, The Guest Children by Patrick Tarr is a unique exploration of what it means to be haunted—by trauma, by family, and by the ghosts that linger in dark places. Set in a vivid postwar landscape, Tarr’s debut takes us from war-torn London to a remote lodge in northern Canada full of secrets and strangeness, where nothing is as it seems and reality is increasingly uncertain. Readers will devour this captivating, psychological ghost story!"
—Jo Kaplan, Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of It Will Just Be Us
“The Guest Children delivers all the pleasures of a war time ghost story — missing children, a mysterious inn, closely-guarded secrets, and a man with a haunted past set to solve it all — but then goes one step further to upend your expectations, leaving you to turn the pages faster and faster, far into the night. It is a lush, visual haunting that will get into your bones— and your dreams.”
— Elisabeth De Mariaffi, author of Hysteria and The Retreat
“The Guest Children is a wrenching supernatural novel that comes disguised as a subtle ghost story, a terrific debut where a cast of unforgettable characters wage private wars of grief, lost childhoods, and truths too painful to confront. It's also a tightly-paced mystery: a remarkable book.”
— Naben Ruthnum, author of Helpmeet
“Reminiscent of Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, The Guest Children masterfully blends history and the supernatural, taking readers deep into the minds and hearts of children scarred by war. Haunting, immersive, and unforgettable—I loved it!”
— Daniel Kalla, bestselling author of The Deepest Fake
“The Guest Children is a moody, gripping, unnerving mystery that evokes the giddy but disorienting thrill of waking up from the nightmare of the Second World War to discover that some ghosts don’t stay in the dark. Patrick Tarr’s crisp, propulsive storytelling had me up way too late, equal parts excited and chilled to know how it all ends.”
— Elan Mastai, author of All Our Wrong Todays