After reading and experiencing so much horror, it’s safe to say that not a lot spooks us anymore. However, we can confidently say that Hannah Whitten’s new novel, her first in the genre, absolutely delivers on every level. Just when you thought nothing could get you, her prose and haunting story absolutely grips you and refuses to let go. And now, you’re finally getting the chance to fully dive in and see if you can handle it for yourself.
Cosmopolitan has an exclusive look at Hannah Whitten’s Reliquary, which is set to be released on August 11, 2026. The novel follows Claire after the death of her fiancé whose own death is filled with mystery. But when his family invites her over for his wake at a remote island estate, she soon finds out that the secrets he was keeping from her are not the only strange thing about this place. Here’s some more info from our friends at Run For It:
A young woman is lured to her late fiancé's remote island estate—only to uncover eerie family secrets, a haunting past, and a monstrous hunger stirring beneath the sea in this deliciously atmospheric horror debut from New York Times bestselling author Hannah Whitten.
When Claire’s fiancé mysteriously dies of an unknown neurological illness, she’s prepared to sink back into the lonely life she lived before. Orphaned by a freak boating accident in her childhood, she never expected to find connection like she did with Elias, anyway. Their relationship wasn’t perfect—his coldness, his secrets, his strange aversion to the ocean—but what relationship is?
When Elias’s family reaches out—his incredibly wealthy family, from whom he was estranged—and invites Claire to a three-day wake at Harrow Point, their family home on a private island, Claire is given the chance to find family again. To belong to something, just like she’s always wanted. Just like Elias knew she was desperate to have.
Even if that family is a little strange. Even if their coastal home stirs up memories of the accident that killed her parents and sister. Even if Ash, Elias’s older brother, seems insistent on Claire leaving as soon as possible.
As she dives deeper into the world of Harrow Point, she will uncover the nature of her own traumatic connection to the ocean. There is something swimming in the bowels of Harrow Point, and it is hungry…
Ready to find out the truth for yourself? Check out an exclusive excerpt below! Just make sure to pre-order Reliquary so you can continue to uncover more when the book is released!
Down, down, Claire followed the Ashburys, feeling the weight of the stone pressing around her, the knowledge of how deep underground they must be. None of the windows she’d seen on the side of the cliff looked in on the staircase, nothing to break up the dimness. There were only stone and dark and those weird mermaid statues, all claws and scales and teeth. A lamp lit the way every few feet, wide and squat and suspended on a metal post that curved at the top, reminding her of the smoky lights you’d see next to a dock in an old movie. Other than that, shadows.
The mermaid statues made her think of her dream on the plane. Elias rotting, Elias apologizing. As much as she wanted to see him alive again, she hoped she didn’t have another dream like that, wet and decomposing, pieces of him dropping away. Though she didn’t want to see him as he’d looked in the first dream, either.
Maybe it’d be a good thing, to see his body. Closure. Put a pin in everything. There had been times the past few days when the clock approached five and she realized she was waiting for him to get home.
Finally the stairs stopped, leveling out to a flat landing. Those odd old-movie lamps lined the edges of the room, shades patterned with the same ripple as the columns out front, the carpet upstairs. A door nearly covered the wall before them, outlined with a sinuous shape that reminded Claire of the symbol painted on the side of the jet. The Ashburys loved a theme.
Elias’s family lined up in front of the door. Everyone’s face held a soft smile—other than Wellsley’s, but Claire assumed that was because his face didn’t really do soft—and again, it was Dierdre who spoke.
“We’re so glad you decided to come, Claire.” Her smile wasn’t just soft; there was a hint of sadness to it. Claire realized, just then, that none of the Ashburys really seemed to be grieving. Though she guessed she couldn’t throw that particular stone from inside her extremely brittle glass house. Maybe they were all as good at burying bad emotions as she was. From what little she knew of the stupidly rich, that seemed to be a feature. Even Elias had never excelled at showing his feelings, as Dr. Lark was fond of reminding her. They were either absent or came in elaborate waves, huge gestures that made her feel simultaneously loved and slightly confused.
“We’re so glad you decided to be part of this.” This from Audrey, stepping slightly forward. She nodded her blonde head, smoothed her movie-star-expensive dress over her movie-star-thin thighs. Her smile trembled a little. “I always wanted a daughter.”
And Claire’s heart swelled, glowed.
“You’re one of us, Claire.” Wellsley had his hands shoved in his pockets. The stance was so like Elias, like staring at a future he’d never have. “You were a good choice, and we’ll always regret that you and Elias were never able to make it official.” He said his son’s name with no break, speeding over it like he was afraid to spend too much time there. They grieved, then. They were just good at hiding it.
Despite the warmth that flooded her—Audrey always wanting a daughter, the rest of them treating her like family—cold still seeped in at her edges. The knowledge of being underground was hard to shake, and it made her acutely aware of the staircase at her back. Surely they wouldn’t mind if she requested that they stay up in the castle? Her legs twitched to run, to go, head up the staircase and into the open air, her gut at odds with her brain. One telling her to get the hell out, one telling her this was all she’d ever wanted.
“Dear God,” came a voice from the shadows. “Are you guys trying to be creepy as shit?”
The voice was startling, made them all jump. The Ashbury patriarch’s mouth was a hard, steady line, but the ocean blue of his eyes had turned hurricane.
“Wellington,” he said, craning his head to look beside the door. A shape there, hidden in the shadows cast by the curved carvings. “How nice of you to finally join us.”
It took Claire a moment to realize he was addressing the shape, not just stating his own name. It took another moment for her to put together who that meant the shape was.
The shape pushed off from the wall, long and lanky, broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. A fizzle, a crack, then the spark of a lighter, held to the end of a cigarette. The light of it illuminated the figure, incredibly bright in the gloom. Sharp-planed face, shaggy dark-gold hair. Bright-blue Ashbury eyes.
Wellington Ashbury VI. Ash.
“Sorry I missed the initiation.” Ash stepped into the light of the lamps, blowing a plume of smoke that dissipated into the air. Claire barely smelled it. The room was big enough that it was like someone smoking outside. “Looks like you got it covered, though. She didn’t run screaming yet. Great job, team.”
There was something familiar about his voice. Not like Patrick’s; low and scratchy. Probably from the cigarettes. But Claire felt like she’d heard it before.
Audrey’s face was pale, her lips a white line. Patrick and Greg, too. Dierdre and Theo exchanged a quick, unreadable look, eyes darting from each other to Claire and then to nothing at all. Only Wellington—the father Wellington—didn’t seem particularly affected. He just looked annoyed.
“Yes,” he said, and the one word softened the shoulders of the others, almost like it was a relief. “She’s here.” Then, turning to Claire and infusing his voice with out-of-place jocularity: “And she didn’t think of running screaming once, did you, Miss Sutherland?”
Claire arranged her lips in a smile, almost a challenge, and met Elias’s brother’s eyes. “I didn’t even think of running silently. I don’t think I could in Louboutins.”
It took them a minute to figure out it was supposed to be a joke, which said far more about Claire than it did about them, but after a split second the Ashburys laughed, all of them except Ash. He just stood there, smoking his cigarette and watching her.
When the laughter died away, it seemed to take the tension in the air with it. Something shattered, and suddenly they were all just people again, a fractured family that might be a little odd, but hey, that’s what massive loss did. Claire knew all about it.
“Wellington,” Audrey said plaintively to her son, making a show of waving her hand in front of her face. “I have asked you over and over not to smoke in the house.”
“Yeah, Audrey, you have.” Ash made no move to comply. Neither did he make it a point to take a huge breath of nicotine. He instead remained exactly as he had been before, slowly puffing away and watching Claire, wholly unaffected.
Audrey’s pale face went a shade paler. She turned to her husband, leaving the subject of her son’s smoking behind. “Wellsley, let’s bring her in, shall we? She’s waited long enough. It was an arduous trip.”
All the Ashburys looked to their patriarch. He nodded, once. “Yes, I think you’re right.”
Ash snorted around his cigarette.
Then, as if Audrey’s thought made it happen, the doors cranked open, and light flooded through.
Claire gasped. Gauche, probably, but the gasp was just as much from relief as it was from awe. Finally, here were the windows—a whole wall of them, turning the house from a grave to a wonder. At least a dozen rows to Claire’s right, all covered in water and backlit by the setting sun. Silvery fish swam beyond the glass, as if only the prettiest sea creatures were allowed to get close. Beside the wall of windows were a long table flanked by heavy chairs and a small collection of couches next to a bookshelf. To Claire’s left, balconies, six of them, all backed by rows of identical doors and facing the wall of windows. A staircase connected the ends of the balconies, absent of mermaid statues. She and the Ashburys stood on its largest landing, level with the third balcony, where the staircase turned and led to the main floor.
And on that main floor, no coffin. No Elias lying in state.
Relief softened Claire’s hand on her suitcase, and her knuckles ached from an iron grip she hadn’t realized she held until she let it go. She’d ask the Ashburys where he was later, but for now, she was glad not to see him. So much for closure.
Something was on the table, though. A cake, it looked like, with a silver-wrapped present next to it.
Everyone trooped down the stairs, talking softly with one another, the tension of their initial descent now a distant thing. “There was an issue with my card,” Audrey murmured to Wellington, sounding more fearful than apologetic. Claire tensed up again. If Elias’s parents were in a financially abusive relationship, she really wasn’t in the mental space to learn about it, which probably made her a terrible person.
But Wellington just patted his wife’s hand. “It’ll all resolve soon.”
Ash remained by Claire, watching her from the corner of an impossibly blue eye. “Spooky, huh?” He didn’t remove the cigarette from his mouth to speak.
“It’s beautiful.” It was beautiful, but it was also spooky. More sinuous lines curved around the windows, and the decor was brutalist, thick and heavy.
“Beautiful and spooky,” Ash replied, like he’d read her mind. His smile tipped to self-satisfied.
Her brows slammed down, her grip tightened on her suitcase again. This was the brother whose selfishness had driven a wedge between Elias and his family, the brother who’d refused to shoulder his own responsibilities and instead shucked them off onto her dead fiancé. The neurologist said that the aneurysm that had killed Elias looked like something waiting since childhood, a sickness unidentified, but surely stress could affect such things. Maybe it was unfair to think of Ash as the reason Elias was dead, but once the thought made a home, she couldn’t evict it.
The knot of emotions in her chest tilted toward the edge, all that massed grief and anger she didn’t have time to deal with. Claire closed her eyes, took a deep and shaking breath. Hollowed out the pit in her chest, gave the knot more room.
“Hey.” Ash didn’t touch her, but she felt him think about it, felt the stir of air when his hand twitched and then fell away. Grief made people so overfamiliar. “You OK?”
“The man I was supposed to marry is dead.” Flat, colorless, a statement of fact. That was the only way she could talk about this. “He’s dead, and I’ve never met his family until now, and I’m here to spend four days with them because I was too chickenshit to plan an actual funeral. Do you think I’m OK, Wellington?”
He didn’t say anything, but she heard the long hiss of his cigarette as she started down the stairs, suitcase hitting each step behind her like a second heartbeat.
From Reliquary. Courtesy of Run For It / Orbit, an imprint of Hachette Book Group. Copyright (c) 2026 by Hannah Whitten.
Reliquary, by Hannah Whitten will be released on August 11, 2026 from Run For It. To preorder the book, click on the retailer of your choice:
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