'I have a gift for you and Nancy.' She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out two little plastic bags. There were two strings of rosary beads, black and shiny like a line of beetles. All families have secrets, but Bernadette's are more dangerous than most. On holiday in Northern Ireland in 1982, she and her older sister discover their family is involved with disappearances and murder. Thirty years later Nancy makes a disastrous return to the farm with her own family. The events of the past gradually and menacingly reveal why those sisters have not spoken to each other since that last disturbing summer together.

'An atmospheric exploration of the intensity of sibling relationships, The Insect Rosary is chilling and evocative: a story full of dark humour, unexpected tensions and unanswered questions, leading to an unbearably tense conclusion.' Elizabeth Haynes, author Into the Darkest Corner

Sarah Armstrong is the author of four novels, most recently The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt and The Starlings of Bucharest. She is also the author of A Summer of Spying, a short non fiction work about her experience of jury service during the Covid-19 pandemic, authority, truth, and the surveillance we are all exposed to.

She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate creative writing with the Open University. Sarah lives in Colchester with her husband and four children.