> Skip to content
[]
  • Published: 9 July 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529972825
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 432
Categories:

The Night Stairs




When schoolgirls start fainting one after the other at an elite convent boarding school, old legends twist into new scandals. From irresistible bestselling storyteller Erin Kelly comes the new compulsive thriller that will leave you craving to read more.

Every school has its scandals. This one could be fatal.

'Had me hooked from page one' JENNIE GODFREY
'Deliciously dark' JANE FALLON
'Relentlessly gripping...Original, atmospheric' LUCY CLARKE

Centuries of tradition are coming to an end at St Cordula's Catholic boarding school. Deputy Head, Fiona Fox, is about to preside over a controversial move to save it from ruin.

Legend has it that the ghost of fifteenth-century nun, Sister Matilda, will keep St Cordula’s safe. But only as long as the words ‘GOD FORGIVE ME’, scrawled by Matilda on a chapel staircase wall before she fell to her death, are repainted every year. The words have only been allowed to fade once, in 2002. Then, fits of vertigo spread through the pupils, and a second girl fell to her death on the night stairs.

Only three people know the truth of what happened on the night of the tragedy. Now the vertigo is back, and unless Fiona can stem the outbreak, St. Cordula’s darkest secret could claim another girl’s life...

The new thriller, with a jaw-dropping twist, from bestselling storyteller Erin Kelly

'A complex and beautifully written gothic thriller...I raced through it' CLARE MACKINTOSH

'Outstanding...as much an insightful novel about female friendship and betrayal as it is a compelling mystery' JANE CASEY

'A stylish and utterly compulsive read from one of my favourite storytellers' RUTH WARE

‘Hysteria, secrets, faith… and murder? This gothic boarding school mystery…gripped me until the very last twist’ JUNO DAWSON

  • Published: 9 July 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529972825
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 432
Categories:

About the author

Erin Kelly

Erin Kelly is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Poison Tree, The Sick Rose, The Burning Air, The Ties That Bind, He Said/She Said, Stone Mothers/We Know You Know, Watch Her Fall, The Skeleton Key and The House of Mirrors, as well as Broadchurch: The Novel, inspired by the award-winning TV series. The Poison Tree became a major ITV drama and was a Richard & Judy Summer Read. He Said/She Said spent six weeks in the top ten in both hardback and paperback, was longlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculier crime novel of the year award and selected for both the Simon Mayo Radio 2 and Richard & Judy Book Clubs. The Skeleton Key was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller and was selected as a Waterstones Thriller of the Month. Born in London in 1976, Erin lives in north London with her husband and daughters.