The Counting Game

By Sinéad Nolan

Into the woods.
Count to ten.
Only one of us comes home again.

When a teenager disappears from her small Irish town and a therapist is brought in to break the silence of the only witness, old wounds are opened in a search that becomes a race against time--perfect for fans of God of the Woods and The Witch Elm.

Southwest Ireland, 1995: Two children go into the woods. Only one comes out.

When thirteen-year-old Saoirse Kellough goes missing, panic grips a rural Irish community. Saoirse is not the first girl to disappear in the forest, rumored by locals to be haunted, and the only witness--her troubled younger brother, Jack--refuses to speak. Saoirse went missing when they were playing the Counting Game, a ritual believed to ward off evil, and Jack has sworn to protect the forest's secrets.

Freya Hemmings, a psychotherapist still healing from a loss of her own, is brought in to help investigators break Jack's silence. As the race to find Saoirse alive accelerates, the search threatens to unravel a family facing the unthinkable. Everyone is a suspect, and the closer Freya and Jack become, the more danger they find themselves in.

Haunting and emotional, The Counting Game is a suspenseful debut from an unmissable new voice in crime fiction.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1668099403
• ISBN13: 9781668099407
• Release Date: April 2026
• Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.1" x 9.1"