A haunting island. A broken covenant. A woman who must survive both.
When Cass inherits a crumbling house on Rothagisht—a remote island near the Arctic Circle—she’s desperate for a new start. The land is stunning, the people strangely aglow with health, and for the first time Cass feels like she might finally belong.
But Rothagisht comes with rules: never go out after dark, never open the door to a knock, and always keep the bell close. As Cass is drawn into the island’s mysteries—and into the secrets of her own bloodline—she discovers Rothagisht is stalked by impossible beings: the Movoi, known as the little kin, and the Garathin, creatures of fire and stone.
With the Festival of Giving and Receiving looming, and the island’s ancient covenant unraveling in blood, Cass must choose: embrace the community she’s longed for, or confront the nightmare that could consume them all.
Perfect for fans of Heather Fawcett, T. Kingfisher, and Ari Aster’s Midsommar, Little Kin is a chilling, folkloric tale of survival and belonging.
Praise for Little Kin
A Los Angeles Book Review Pick of Horror to Look Out for This Season
Read an excerpt courtesy of HWA The Seers’s Table
“Full of rising tension and palpable dread, Little Kin grabs you by the hand and dares you to stare into the dark without flinching. Folk horror at its finest!”—Erin A. Craig, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Thirteenth Child
“In Katya de Becerra’s eerie fantasy novel Little Kin, shadowy monsters plague a desolate island…Little Kin is an atmospheric novel about the consequences of allowing greed, ignorance, and adherence to harmful traditions to disrupt the balance between humans and nature.” —Foreword Reviews
“Richly imagined and deliciously unsettling, Little Kin is perfect for readers craving slow-burning, folklore-inspired horror.”—Los Angeles Book Review
“At turns gorgeous and gritty, Little Kin is folk horror at its finest: haunting enough to bring the chills, yet deeply emotional as it explores what it means to belong. You’ll never forget your visit to the forbidding, mist-swathed island of Rothagisht.”—Sarah Glenn Marsh, award-winning author of Our Rogue Fates
“Katya de Becerra’s prose transports you to a strange island where you can feel her passion for anthropology on every page. An engrossing blend of mystery, romance, and folklore, Little Kin is peak atmospheric horror.” —Tatiana Schlote-Bonne, author of The Mean Ones and What Feeds Below
“A mesmerizing blend of folk horror and dark fantasy, Katya de Becerra’s Little Kin is a knock on the door in the dead of night. Dread and longing simmer beneath the surface, and sinister legacies crawl back from the past in this propulsive, get-under-your-skin read.” —A. J. Vrana, award-winning author of Wildblood
“The book’s strength is in its creative world-building and the tension between Cass’s training as an anthropologist and her realization that, as much as she wants to observe the denizens of Rothagisht from a professional distance, she’s not just one of them; she might just hold the key to the island’s survival.”—Booklist
“The author has a PhD in anthropology and makes excellent use of her academic skill set by intricately laying the foundations of how a remote island community survives and thrives on the edge of the Arctic Circle….It is not really about who is good or bad, but more about how to appease the island, which is also vividly described and a powerful living and breathing entity.”—Horror DNA
“Little Kin is in a league of its own and a powerhouse of a novel…It’s rare to be able to describe a folk horror as ‘fun’ or ‘escapist’, but Little Kin manages to earn those titles. Its writing style is warm and indulgent despite the often gruesome subject matter.”—Malevolent Dark
“For readers drawn to folklore-inspired horror and atmospheric suspense.”—The Cullman Times roundup: Past the edge of ordinary: 18 new books that push characters to the limit
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