Publication Date: October 20, 2026
In this Appalachian horror novel, two estranged siblings become trapped in a convenience store under attack by a monster from the mountains who feasts on guilty hearts.
Rattle, rattle in the dark…
The mountain’s bones seek out a heart.
Jane has not spoken to her brother Thomas since the accident that nearly killed them both. Their drive from college through the North Georgia mountains is uncomfortably silent, until they stop at a roadside convenience store, where a man stumbles in with a mutilated body, claiming to have been attacked by a monster.
At first, no one believes the man’s ravings, but when the next person to leave the store is brutally killed, they fear that local legend might be true:
There’s a beast in these mountains who feasts on guilty hearts… and someone among them has lured it out of hiding.
Jane and Thomas each harbor secrets, but so do the other patrons, and as the monster claims more hearts, the survivors turn on each other, desperate to save themselves by uncovering the guiltiest among them.
If the siblings can’t overcome the rift between them, they’ll surely become the monster’s next victims…or worse, become monsters themselves.
A family holiday in a remote Appalachian location takes a sinister twist as siblings encounter something during a pit stop.
Author Katherine Daniel delivers a horrifying tale in When Night Comes Knocking. Thomas and Jane find themselves among strangers, stuck in a convenience store and hiding from an inexplicably malevolent entity.
From the beginning, it’s clear that the siblings have a fractured relationship. It’s not until the story progresses that the reasons become clear. Everyone seeking safety in the remote store has secrets contributing to a guilty conscience—the very thing drawing the creature.
The author uses the events of one night to keep the fast pace, interrupting with various flashbacks. With fears of being ripped apart at the forefront, the characters try to determine who is keeping the worst secret.
When Night Comes Knocking leverages mountain folklore along with a motley group of people trying to survive the night.
Katherine Daniel is a fiction writer based in Atlanta, Georgia, where she loves to explore the dark and twisty parts of what it means to be human through storytelling. Her debut novel “When the Night Comes Knocking” will be published on October 20th, 2026 in the US and on November 19th, 2026 in the UK.
