One Came Back
On sale
27th February 2025
Price: £20
‘Dark and devastating… a story that haunts you’ – Heather Critchlow, author of Unsolved
“On impact, the boy seemed to fold down and disappear, as if maybe he hadn’t been there in the first place…”
It’s New Year’s Eve in Edinburgh when Emily sees Nicky. Or at least she thinks she does. He looks, laughs, and moves just like Nicky. But how can that be? Nicky died when they were teenagers, in an accident on a remote road up in the Highlands… didn’t he?
A week later, Emily sees the man again. He says his name Nicholas. This man not only looks like an adult version of her friend, but he also knows things that only Nicky should know.
As her encounters with Nicholas become more frequent and her fixation intensifies, the truth becomes murkier, and more unsettling.
Is Emily being haunted, is she going mad – or is something altogether darker going on…
ONE CAME BACK is a powerfully tense debut novel combining the chill of the modern gothic with the hook of a thriller, exploring the depths of grief, memory, and obsession.
“On impact, the boy seemed to fold down and disappear, as if maybe he hadn’t been there in the first place…”
It’s New Year’s Eve in Edinburgh when Emily sees Nicky. Or at least she thinks she does. He looks, laughs, and moves just like Nicky. But how can that be? Nicky died when they were teenagers, in an accident on a remote road up in the Highlands… didn’t he?
A week later, Emily sees the man again. He says his name Nicholas. This man not only looks like an adult version of her friend, but he also knows things that only Nicky should know.
As her encounters with Nicholas become more frequent and her fixation intensifies, the truth becomes murkier, and more unsettling.
Is Emily being haunted, is she going mad – or is something altogether darker going on…
ONE CAME BACK is a powerfully tense debut novel combining the chill of the modern gothic with the hook of a thriller, exploring the depths of grief, memory, and obsession.
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Reviews
A hugely impressive debut. It left me reeling. A mesmerising and powerful ghost story that delves deep into memory and the emotional landscapes of grief. Rose McDonagh is a rare talent and a masterful storyteller.
"A gripping mystery, that balances its eerie, page-turning plot with poetic and moving insights into grief and the porous boundaries between reality and illusion. McDonagh observes so beautifully the haunting and uncanny coincidences life presents us with. I loved it."
Dark and devastating, with a beautifully realised Highland setting, One Came Back delves into an eerie obsession where nothing is quite what it seems. When Emily sees an old childhood friend in Edinburgh at New Year she is transfixed - because Nicky has been dead for twenty years. McDonagh's prose is spare and intimate, pulling the reader into the claustrophobia of Emily's mind as she becomes fixated on Nicky and the things he seems to know about her. A portrait of limerence and the enduring importance of teenage years and experiences, this is a story that haunts you long after you've left the page.
"Starts intriguing, soon becomes creepy, moves swiftly on to downright unsettling."
I found this compelling and genuinely eerie. There's a fever-dream
quality to it but also a directness of gaze which makes the whole story
of loss and confused identity feel distinctly plausible. Rose McDonagh
has woven such a closely layered and claustrophic tale that I was left
guessing all the way through. I didn't see the ending coming but when it
did I realised how cleverly she had in fact been leaving a trail to
follow. I was so impressed with the way she combines oddness with
ordinariness - and how complex and frightening scenes are described with
such clear-eyed precision. Apart from anything else, I always approve of
novels which don't abandon the small-scale and the hum-drum - which is,
of course, exactly what adds to the chilling effect here.
This is a finely crafted novel which finds that elusive balance between suspense and reflection. It is a novel which needs to be read twice: the plot means it is almost impossible to put it down, but the questions it asks about the nature of memory, loss and delusion demand more time. McDonagh plays with the narrative threads of the past and the present with the skill of a master weaver. The evocation of childhood and adolescence is poignant and written with acute observation and understanding; it draws the reader back into their own youth to think about that liminal space between reality and memory.
McDonagh has chosen the unstable mind as her playground and the games she plays there with her reader usurp the rules and upend the idea of there being a winer. Book Groups choosing this novel will need to set aside extra time for discussion because there are no easy answers in One Came Back.
One Came Back is a haunted and haunting gothic thriller about how grief and obsession obscure memory. Creeping, dark and twisty: like scaling a mountain, and peering over the sheer drop at the edge.