by Deena Helm
First published 2026
Marina knows almost nothing about her Palestinian heritage when her grandmother Nuhad dies. Her mother Haifa has kept their family history buried, but Marina decides to visit the ancestral home in Haifa that Nuhad fled during the 1948 Nakba. The house sits empty and strange. Cats won't go near it. Neighbors have disappeared without explanation. Mysterious sounds echo from inside. As Marina searches through the rooms and digs into her grandmother's past, she grows increasingly ill. The house seems to poison everything around it. Nuhad's spirit tries to warn Marina away, but the young woman pushes deeper into the family's buried truths. When Haifa realizes her daughter is in danger, she rushes to help despite her own fears about returning to the place that destroyed their family. Three generations of women must now face the house and its secrets together. They have to heal what was broken or risk losing everything to the past.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, mystery, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: family-legacy, haunted-house, intergenerational-trauma
Setting: Haifa, Palestine
Period: 1948 Nakba
288 pages · Hardcover · Tor Nightfire