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PEOPLE has an exclusive excerpt from Kelly Rimmer’s new novel The Story KeeperThe bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say describes her latest book as a family mystery and a “love song to all things books”The Story Keeper will be published in summer 2026
Kelly Rimmer is unraveling another twisty story.
PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at the author’s latest novel, The Story Keeper, out next summer via MIRA, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
The novel follows Fiona Winslow who escapes to her family’s gothic estate, Wurimbirra, after a difficult year. The once-prosperous home is now deteriorating, and Fiona intends to restore it to its former grandeur.
But when Fiona uncovers an old book that belonged to her late uncle entitled The Midnight Estate, she learns that the volume eerily mirrors her own life. Soon, fiction begins to mix with reality, and Fiona is forced to confront the true mysteries of the book and Wurimbirra.
“This story is so special to me,” Rimmer, the bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say and The German Wife, tells PEOPLE. “It’s a book-within-a-book family mystery, a love song to all things books and an ode to small towns like the place I called home as a kid. I can’t wait to share it with readers!”
Read an exclusive excerpt from The Story Keeper below.
The cover of ‘The Story Keeper’ by Kelly Rimmer.
MIRA
Uncle Tad was a storyteller by nature as well as profession and he loved to tell elaborate stories about the “ghosts” he supposedly shared Wurimbirra with. So many ghosts. Not a menacing one among the crowd of them, at least in the stories Tad told me. I was possibly the first child in history to grow up believing she lived in a haunted house and thrilled about the excitement of it. I used to hope and pray I’d see one of Tad’s ghosts.
Only as I grew older did I learn that there were other stories that circulate around this region — about the mansion’s dark past, about spirits lingering on the land because of unfathomable injustice and unresolved pain. There’s a terrible truth behind all of that — a few years before this house was built, something unthinkable did happen right on the other side of the low concrete wall that bounds the existing property. Even so, I don’t believe in ghosts, and that’s mostly because I lived here for 16 years and in all of that time, I never felt anything but safe and loved.
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I walk into the parlor first. It’s dark in here, the space illuminated only by scattered light through a series of alarming vertical tears along the bottoms of the velvet curtains. It takes me only a moment or two to wonder about those tears, because the air is so heavy with dust I can taste it with every breath, but there’s another scent, a faded hint of musk and decay. Growing up in the country, this is a smell I know all too well. Rats and mice have thrived in this house over the years.
This realization has me walking quickly across to tug the curtains open, just in time for me to hear a car door slam, followed by pounding against the front door. I sigh as I walk to pull the front doors open, then wince as the hinge gives that long, ominous creak.
“What have you done, Fiona?” Mum whispers fiercely. “What have you done?”
Kelly Rimmer.
Kirsten Cunningham Photography
Virginia Winslow is famously calm and reserved. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her angry — maybe I even assumed she was incapable of the emotion — but right now, her small hands are curled into fists by her side. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes narrowed.
She’s standing a few steps back from the door in the middle of the wide veranda, dressed in her usual chinos with a busily patterned button-down. Her only concession to the cold wind is a knitted navy vest. Mum’s thick hair has been a steely silver for as long as I can remember, cut into the same short style. She’s 80 years old but she’s always looked much younger than her age.
“Come in,” I say carefully, and I step back from the door to hold it open, making room for her. A pained, fearful twist passes across Mum’s face as she glances into the foyer. All at once, I am reminded that we held Uncle Tad’s wake in the ballroom here because it was the logical place to do so, but my mother tried everything to insist on a different venue, to the point that Jon had to put his foot down about the matter. As much as Mum loathes this house, Tad loved it, and there was no more fitting venue to celebrate his life.
But even at the time, I understood where Mum was coming from. It was Mum who found Tad the morning after he died, and she found him right here in his bed. Plus, she didn’t exactly love Wurimbirra even before she discovered her brother’s body here. Even when I was a child, Mum jumped at every creaking floorboard, and shuddered every time a window rattled in the wind.
And then to arrive one ordinary New Year’s Day to find her brother had died in his sleep overnight … I can’t imagine how that moment has haunted her.
A 3D version of ‘The Story Keeper’ by Kelly Rimmer.
MIRA
Her shoulders slump, and she takes a step backwards, towards the stairs.
“Tad treated you like his own daughter,” she says, shaking her head. “He showered you with love and generosity and care. After everything he did for you, he asked one thing from you and Jon, and you kids can’t even honor that.”
“Mum, Jon couldn’t ignore this place forever. He had legal obligations—”
“You think you know this house,” she interrupts me, nostrils flaring again. “You’ve been so sure that you had already figured out everything there is to know about it. Well, now you’re going to be here all alone, and maybe you’ll finally understand.”
She turns to leave, and goosebumps break out all over my skin as a shiver runs down my spine. I take a step out the door towards her as I blurt,
“Understand what, Mum?”
She glances back at me and gives a heavy sigh. Her gaze is hollow.
“History doesn’t always stay in the past, Fiona. I hope to God you know what you’re doing.”
Excerpted from The Story Keeper by Kelly Rimmer, Copyright © 2026 by Lantana Management PTY Ltd. Published by MIRA/Harlequin Trade Publishing.
The Story Keeper will be published on July 21, 2026 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.