A desperate phone call
A decade of questions
A deadly race to the truth

Twelve years ago, budding journalist Geneva Leighton received a phone call that stopped her life in its tracks. Her terrified sister, Amber, was locked in the boot of a moving car and begging Geneva for help. Amber was never heard from again.

Trust no one. Your life depends on it.

A new heart-stopping thriller to keep you reading all night from critically acclaimed Rae Cairns.

REVIEWS FOR DYING TO KNOW

  • ‘This book is a genuine page turner. The pace builds & builds – it kept me guessing all the way. Geneva Leighton is a brilliant protagonist – tough & resourceful, yet vulnerable & caring.’

    CHRIS HAMMER

  • ‘Rae Cairns shows us what ordinary people can do in extraordinary situations. Dying to Know is a thrilling and wild ride with love at its core.’

    HAYLEY SCRIVENOR

  • ‘Intriguing, heart-wrenching and compelling, Cairns draws you in and holds you until the final gasping twist.’

    SULARI GENTILL

  • ‘Smart and suspenseful, Dying to Know is another high stakes original thriller from Cairns that does not ease up until the last page. I dare anyone to read it slowly.’

    SARAH BAILEY

  • ‘Wow, what a ride! Dying to Know has all the ingredients of the perfect thriller: a brilliant start, lots of twists and turns, and characters you really care about. I couldn’t put it down.’

    SARA FOSTER

  • ‘Dying to Know is a fast-paced thriller that hooked me in and kept me guessing. A gripping read with high stakes and blurred lines between good and evil’

    PETRONELLA MCGOVERN

  • ‘I raced through this addictive, twisty book, desperate to solve the mystery of Amber’s disappearance alongside Geneva. An expertly plotted and wholly absorbing thriller.’

    NICOLA MORIARTY

  • ‘Compelling and emotive, Dying to Know kept me up late at night dying to know what happened. Cairns deftly captures the pressures of a modern family and Gen Leighton is a character that you’ll want to root for.'

    RWR MCDONALD

  • 'Rae Cairns is the master of gripping thrillers with big hearts. Dying to Know is all the more terrifying because of how much you care about the characters ensnared in its dark and twisty tale.'

    ANNA SNOEKSTRA

She's protected them from the truth.
Can she save them from her past?

Shortlisted for BEST DEBUT CRIME FICTION in the 2021 NED KELLY AWARDS

‘This story wouldn’t let me go.’
Michael Robotham

'Fierce, action-packed ... A wild, original ride from start to finish.’
Sarah Bailey

'This taut, propulsive debut celebrates female strength and speaks to the extraordinary courage and resilience of mothers everywhere ... Brilliant!'
Anna Downes

REVIEWS FOR THE GOOD MOTHER

  •  'No matter how far you run, and where you hide, the past can still reach out of the grave and grab you by the ankles. This story wouldn’t let me go.'

    MICHAEL ROBOTHAM

  • ‘This taut, propulsive debut celebrates female strength & the extraordinary courage & resilience of mothers. A brilliant achievement - there should be more crime novels like this.’

    ANNA DOWNES

  • ‘A fierce, action-packed story of redemption and the unbreakable bond between a mother and her son. The Good Mother is a wild, original ride from start to finish!'

    SARAH BAILEY

  • ‘An absorbing story that packs a powerful punch, The Good Mother is the very best kind of page-turning thriller. A rock-solid five-star read!’

    SARA FOSTER

  • ‘The Good Mother has all the ingredients of a gripping page-turner. I was hooked from the first page until the final twist. A brilliant debut from a writer to watch.’

    TIM AYLIFFE

  • ‘Fans of Dervla McTiernan will love this rollercoaster ride of a crime novel where a violent past returns to threaten an uneasy peace. I inhaled it!’

    AOIFE CLIFFORD

Latest…

The Good Mother makes the Better Reading Top 100 Books List for 2023

The Good Mother, my debut novel, snuck in at number 98 on the Better Reading TOP 100 books for 2023!

Heartfelt thanks to all the gorgeous readers who loved Sarah’s story and voted! It’s such important news for my book because Big W use this list for their Top 100 shelf throughout the year.

Thank you Better Reading for being such a fabulous support to readers and writers! It’s brilliant to see that 10,000 people voted and that 55% of the Top 100 were books by Australian authors.

Thanks also to @jeannefrites @rkivers and the team @harpercollinsbooksaustralai for getting The Good Mother into readers hands

Click here for the full Better Reading Top 100 list.

ABOUT RAE

Rae Cairns writes crime with heart: thrillers featuring everyday people facing extraordinary circumstances. Her debut novel The Good Mother was shortlisted for Best Debut Crime Fiction in the 2021 Ned Kelly Awards and longlisted for the 2021 Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards. It draws on her background as a youth worker in Northern Ireland during the final years of 'The Troubles'. 

Dying to Know, Rae’s second novel, is a standalone Sydney based thriller and centres around a woman’s determination to uncover what happened to her missing sister.