Excerpts Horror Read an Excerpt From The Bone Queen by Will Shindler A mother’s search for her missing daughter battles against the shadows of a historic, dangerous legend. By Will Shindler | Published on January 29, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Bone Queen, a new horror-thriller by Will Shindler publishing with Minotaur Books on February 3. Single mother Jenna arrives on the tranquil shores of Athelsea fueled by the desperate hope to find Chloe, her teenage daughter who’s disappeared from their London home. She has no idea why—all she knows is that Chloe had changed in the previous two weeks, haunted by something, or someone, and the ferry ticket here is the only clue she has.As she explores the village and interacts with the locals, Jenna soon realizes a macabre secret is being hidden in plain sight. A dark legend of a vengeful woman called the Bone Queen is spoken of in hushed tones amongst the villagers, some of whom are frantically trying to suppress the tale that has long terrorized their lives.As Jenna starts to learn more about the Bone Queen and her previous victims, the village’s grip on reality begins to loosen and no one can say for sure who, or what, is responsible for the deaths and disappearances on Athelsea. Suffering from what she can no longer distinguish between paranoid hallucinations or real manifestations, Jenna must act quickly before Chloe is next…The Bone Queen has left her mark, and one day she’ll collect. Prologue The rain lashes across her face like a whip. She’s running into the night and even the trees feel like they’re conspiring against her, their gnarled branches twisting like the interlocked fingers of old men. These woods are dense, and she has no idea which direction to even head for. All she knows is her pursuer is gaining ground and what’s ahead can’t be worse than what’s behind. The earth beneath is wet and leafy and she can taste the salt on her lips from the sea which is rolling and roaring somewhere close. Panic forces her to quicken her pace. Her Nikes, bought with such pride in another time and place, are coming apart and she stumbles on a root sending her tumbling. For a second, she remains down, feeling the stitch in her chest mercifully subside a little. She considers staying put—hiding in the shadows. Then she hears it—hears her—that hint of cold laughter caught on the night air and knows it’s not an option. With a whimper, she forces herself back up onto her feet and starts running again. She tries to imagine a road on the other side of the trees and that thought gives her renewed hope. In her mind’s eye, she sees a car with its headlights cutting through the darkness like laser beams. A kind stranger leaning across to open the passenger door. An escape back to a world she should never have left, to people she should never have hurt. Behind her the urgent rush of her pursuer is getting louder, wood snapping underfoot as it scrabbles after her. If she’s caught, there won’t be any mercy shown. The tears streaming down her face are a distraction. The only thing that matters is getting away and she’s starting to lose faith that it’s even possible now—that the reach of what’s chasing her is too long. It feels like these woods have been waiting for her all her life and that this is where everything surely ends. She skids on some moss and crashes against something hard. There’s immediate sharp pain in her side. Something’s cut through her jeans into her thigh. She sees a huge fallen branch, jagged spikes of wood jutting out of it randomly, cloaked by the darkness. Swearing under her breath she reaches down and can feel the blood leaking through her fingers. She can’t stop herself from crying out—more in despair than pain. That’s a mistake and she knows it straight away. She hears it stop, imagines its head turning now, craning to listen before changing direction. There’s a pitter-patter as the rain begins to get heavier. Just as it has for the last week it quickly starts pounding down, the noise increasing with a rumble. She takes advantage of it and begins moving again. There’s a bank in front and she hauls herself up and over with a desperate heave. The woods seem to be thinning out now but everything’s a blur. She’s not sure what’s on the other side of these trees but is hoping for a break. Something, anything. Buy the Book The Bone Queen Will Shindler Buy Book The Bone Queen Will Shindler Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget She finds herself on open ground and runs raggedly across the long grass, but not fast enough. And then her heart stops as it dawns on her where she is. There’s a short, battered fence in the middle distance, and on the other side of it she can hear the sea pounding against the rock face far below. There’s sheer terror now as she realizes there’s nowhere left for her to run, and she turns to face what’s coming. It’s her—of course it is. The thing she’s been running from for so long, and everything seems to coalesce at that moment. All she can hear now is a roaring in her ears and the cold seems to go right through her. The rain is sheeting down and the terrible cowled figure slowly, jerkily, raises an arm and holds it out towards her accusingly. Her nerve breaks. She turns and sprints towards the cliff edge, not looking back. Climbing the short fence she stands for a moment, pressing her back against its rotting wood. The silver-coin moon illuminates the rocks below, showing her the way—and without hesitation, she leaps into the abyss. Chapter 1 Today The first thing that hit her was the sound of the place. Seagulls—lots of them circling overhead, crying and squalling as the ferry inched closer. Some people enjoy traveling like this, but Jenna Tipton knew she definitely wasn’t one of them. The whole process was laborious and tiring and she felt sick. But that wasn’t because of the choppy waters—she’d been living with the nausea for days and was almost getting used to it. Almost. She knew there was only one thing that was going to make that go away. In her early forties, the last week had aged her badly. Her mousy brown hair had turned frizzy, her lips were dry and chapped, and her skin felt like battered old leather. But none of that mattered, not in the way they normally would. She’d been told Athelsea Island was stunning but now that they could see it properly, there was nothing that stood out about it. A small rock tucked thirty miles or so off the Cornish coast. In the summer months, it was overrun by tourists—but in the cold blast of February, the huddle of white-brick buildings clustered around the harbor looked more like the death of hope.  ‘Nearly there Jen. Are you okay?’ said a voice behind her and she turned to see her sister Hattie fiddling with her phone trying to get some sort of signal on it. Much as she loved her, Jenna hoped it wasn’t because she wanted to upload a picture of the bloody island onto her Insta. Then she felt bad for having the thought because without her she’d never have made it even this far. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, answering the question with a dirty fat lie. Hattie was three years younger. Wearing a navy fur-lined puffa jacket, she looked impossibly glamorous, which was standard. Long black locks cascaded around her neck, tousled from the wind, which made her seem even more stunning than usual. It was all the more impressive given how much she hated the sea. A city girl by nature, she’d had a phobia about water since childhood and had done a decent job of covering it since they’d set off. Jenna turned back to face the island, which was getting ever closer. ‘Have we made a mistake coming here?’ she said, but Hattie shook her head. ‘We’re following the breadcrumb trail, aren’t we? And from what we know this is the likeliest option, isn’t it?’ She said it as if explaining the search for a misplaced set of keys. ‘What if I’m wrong though?’ said Jenna, wincing as yet another blast of cold wet wind swept across them. ‘What if we’re wasting valuable time? What if this is just a self-indulgence and we miss something important back home because of it?’ The questions had been tormenting her all day and Hattie had already heard them several times over. ‘And what if the moon’s made of green cheese? More to the point—what if she is here? That’s why we’ve come, isn’t it? To bring her home?’ Jenna nodded—there was that. She could see the bay a bit more clearly as the ferry got closer and its attractions were becoming a little more obvious now. There were boarded-up seafront cafés and restaurants which presumably did a roaring trade fleecing tourists during the summer. Pretty cobbled streets divided them, and old-fashioned-style signposts pointed the way to attractions such as the Athelsea Lighthouse and the Haunted Coves. ‘It looks dead,’ said Hattie and she was right. It also had that superficiality that all these kinds of places possessed which crowds and fine weather helped mask. In ordinary circumstances, it wouldn’t take Jenna more than an hour to get bored here, but these weren’t ordinary circumstances. ‘Who lives here?’ she said. ‘And why would you live here? I mean—it’s like this during the winter, then gets overrun by drunken twenty-somethings in the summer. I can’t see the attraction.’ Hattie smiled. ‘That’s because you’re middle-aged.’ ‘Thanks, mate. Don’t get too cocky—you’re not that far behind me.’ The dynamic between them sometimes felt like it had been frozen in aspic from when they were teenagers. The passing of time didn’t seem to affect them. It felt as if it would always be like that. ‘You know what I mean, Jen. I imagine the population here is largely retired. It’s not meant for people like us, is it?’ ‘So why in the world would she come here?’ And for that, her sister had no answer. The Bone Queen. Copyright © 2026 by Will Shindler. All rights reserved. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>The Bone Queen</i> by Will Shindler appeared first on Reactor.