Laura escaped from her home in outback Queensland as soon as she became an adult, making a new life for herself in the UK. But years later, when she receives a call to tell her that her parents have passed away, Laura returns home with her husband and daughter, only to discover that her parents’ deaths could not be stranger. For an elderly couple who preferred the comforts of their home, their bodies being stranded in the empty desert so far away doesn’t make sense to Laura. Further secrets lurk inside her childhood home – the mysterious obsession with the outback that her parents suddenly held; a nosy neighbour who seems intent on taking the home for herself; a haunting diary that recounts the last few days her parents were alive. Written from the perspectives of Laura and her daughter Tilly, we watch as supernatural events torment them in their home, corroding their sanity day by day.

The Visitor is a creepy yet touching exploration of grief, loss, and the ghosts of the past that refuse to leave. Readers will empathise with Tilly’s endeavour to connect with her mother as she further distances herself from her family to solve the mystery of her parents’ deaths. Rebecca Starford acutely captures the individual and complex struggles to come to terms with one’s grief and how that changes who you are. She also writes with poignant beauty about the tragic guilt that Laura feels for not connecting with her parents more over the years, questioning, toward the end, whether she ever truly knew them at all. It is a clarifying reminder that we must cherish every moment we are given with the ones we love before it’s too late, lest our regrets haunt us forever.