A Ghost Calls His Siblings Home in A Box Full of Darkness — Read a Sneak Peek! (Exclusive)

Eighteen years after fleeing the home where their little brother disappeared, the Esmie siblings are lured back by a haunting request from the ghost of their lost sibling — “come home.”

That’s the spine-tingling premise of the latest Simone St. James thriller, A Box Full of Darkness — and PEOPLE has a first look at the cover and inside.

St. James’ chilling settings, creepy storytelling and blend of supernatural and all-too-mortal drama in books like Murder Road, The Book of Cold Cases and The Sun Down Motel have landed them on the New York Times bestseller list and made the author a Goodreads Choice Awards favorite.

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This winter, A Box Full of Darkness will see an estate cleaner finally confront the ghosts of her childhood home and maybe even find out what happened to the brother who went missing decades earlier. Read on for a sneak peek inside the spine-tingling pages.

Daylight Landscaping, can I help you?” A man’s deep voice answered the phone. “Henry speaking.”

“My name is Violet Esmie,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “I’m returning your call.”

“Right. Thanks for calling me back, Mrs. Esmie.”

Esmie was my birth name. I’d never taken Clay’s name when we married. I didn’t bother to correct him.

“What can I help you with?” I asked.

“Mrs. Esmie, I’m sorry to say this, but I have to terminate our contract.”

My throat constricted. “What? Why? I’ve been using your company for years.”

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“Yes, and we appreciate your business. But unfortunately we won’t be going back to your property. We will refund a portion of your last payment and—”

“I don’t care about that. I care about why. Why are you doing this after all this time?”

Henry cleared his throat. “Mrs. Esmie, I’m going to assume you haven’t visited the property recently?”

I could have laughed at that, but it would have had no humor in it. None of us — not Dodie, Vail, myself, or our parents, who were now dead — had been to the Fell house in 18 years. We wouldn’t sell it, we wouldn’t demolish it and we wouldn’t go back. We’d just live with it weighing us down forever.

“No,” I managed. “Not recently.”

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“My employees have concerns. They tell me … Well, they said they’ve seen some strange things. I wrote it off at first, because it was crazy, but then some of my guys threatened to quit if I sent them back and I can’t afford that. So I went to the property myself, and I can’t write it off anymore.”

He sounded embarrassed. He’d assumed I’d scoff at him or disbelieve him. Instead I said, “What did you see?”

“I’ve been going over it and over it in my mind, you understand. I’m not the kind of person who sees things. I haven’t even told my wife. It was just so strange. But I’m never going back there — I know that much. Nothing could make me go.”

I had no time for this. “Who was it?”

Henry paused.

“It was a person, right? So who? Who did you see?” Was it Mom or Dad? I wondered. The thought of one of them wandering around the old house made me angry, but something told me that wasn’t it. An icy shard of cold slid into my stomach, because if it wasn’t them, it had to be — No. No.

Henry said, “Look, Mrs. Esmie—”

“Who did you see?” My voice was a hoarse shout as I cut him off.

“A boy,” Henry said. “A little boy standing in front of the house.”

Something hard hit my knees. The floor. I’d fallen to my knees without realizing it. “Did he speak?” I asked.

“Mrs. Esmie—”

“Did he speak?” I shouted, my voice ringing in the bedroom. “Just tell me. What did he say?”

Henry sounded frightened now. He wasn’t the only one. My anger had turned into sick, nauseating fear.

“The little boy at your house,” Henry told me. “He said, ‘Come home.’ “

Excerpted from A Box Full of Darkness by Simone St. James, published by Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2026.

A Box Full of Darkness by Simone St. James comes out on Jan. 20, 2026 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

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