It’s 1825, four generations after Berggrund Island’s women stood accused of witchcraft under the eye of their priest, now long dead. In his place is Pastor Silas, a widower with two wild young daughters, Beata and Ulrika. The sisters are outcasts: imaginative, oppositional, increasingly obsessed with the lore and legend of the island’s dark past and their absent mother, whom their father refuses to speak of.

As the girls come of age, and the strictures of the community shift but never wane, their rebellions twist and sharpen. Ever capable Ulrika shoulders the burden of keeping house, while Bea, alone with unsettling visions and impulses, hungers for companionship and attention. When an enigmatic outsider arrives at their door, his presence threatens their family bond and unearths – piece by piece – a buried history to shocking ends. All the while Berggrund’s neighboring island The Blue Maiden beckons, storied home of the Witches’ Sabbath and Satan’s realm, its misted shore veiling truths the sisters have spent their lives searching for.

A Nordic Gothic laced with the horrors of life in a patriarchy both hostile to and reliant on its women, The Blue Maiden is a starkly beautiful depiction of lost lineage and resilience.

Praise for The Blue Maiden:

“Bracing . . . Noyes shows with incisive and imagistic prose how the specter of the eerie, ever-changing Blue Maiden hangs over the residents of Berggrund like a pall as the sisters come of age to face horrifying tragedies. Noyes evokes Shirley Jackson in this inspired and memorable gothic tale.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review

“This debut novel churns with the smell of sea-damp wool, day-old bread, and elderflower-scented smoke . . . Noyes’ rich descriptions create a setting that, in all its consuming bleakness, is perfect for a story about the burdens of generational and gendered trauma . . . A twisting narrative of the horrors of patriarchal subordination that will appeal to fans of classic gothic novels.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Backdropped by the aura and lore of the island, Noyes’ captivating debut novel is a vivid journey into womanhood, self-discovery, and the bonds of family.”—Booklist

“Through mysterious and musical prose, Noyes (Goodnight, Beautiful Women) delves into the folklore, paternalism, and superstition that keep women in their place, tied to the unforgiving religious beliefs of the time . . . A captivating Nordic gothic about a search for self.”—Library Journal

“This perfect book stands all on its own. It is so finely crafted, every word is essential, incantatory. Terrifying, but real. I loved it so much.”—Jenny Slate, author of Little Weirds

“Anna Noyes writes like a witch. The Blue Maiden is a shimmering spell of a novel: mesmerizing, beautiful, and alive with pain, wonder, rage and love. The misty island followed me into my dreams and the sisters stayed with me long after I closed the cover. Simply stunning.”—Emma Törzs, author of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“A breathtaking story of sisterhood and secrets that gripped me from page one. Beata and Ulrika are magnetic, and their coming-of-age on wild Berggrund Island is a tale unlike any other, full of astonishing twists. The Blue Maiden is a knockout by a writer at the height of her exquisite powers.”—Julie Buntin, author of Marlena

“This extraordinary novel turned me ravenous; I read in rapture, in awe. Noyes shows how lore sustains us, just as it stifles, and how the pain we inherit shapes who we become. Every sentence is resplendent, assured; every scene gripping and intimate. An exquisite homage to sisterhood, a treasure, a masterpiece.”—Claire Luchette, author of Agatha of Little Neon

“The Blue Maiden contains a radiant mythology, a web of nature, eros, death and birth. It is partly a young girl’s coming of age in the mid-nineteenth century, and partly a treatise of the wildness in women. There are witch trials, poisons, ghostly islands, superstitious lore, madness and suffering. But it’s Anna Noyes’s absolutely dazzling prose, each sentence wrought like iron, that gives this novel a stunning pathos and depth far beyond a gothic fairy tale. The Blue Maiden haunted me long after I put it down.”—Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter

“A spectacular novel of sisterly devotion and the sacred bonds formed of loss and secrecy. What a gift Noyes has bequeathed to us, her readers, and to the sub-genre of modern witcherature. Stole the sleep from my eyes until the early hours. It is such a great book and I cannot wait for people to discover it. Such skill and technique, and a *lot* of story in this slender volume. Pure sorcery, I don’t know how she did this. Impressive!”—Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ, author of Dazzling

Praise for Goodnight, Beautiful Women:

“Assured and atmospheric, tender and melancholy, these stories of women adrift linger in the mind like music. I love them.”—Karen Thompson Walker

“Noyes’ achievement here is nothing less than a high-wire act: precise, fearless, breathtaking. She casts an unwavering gaze on the nature of frailty and desire, offering up gem after gem in this sensuous and startling debut.”—Téa Obreht

“With terrible grace, these stories bring to light the peril hidden within the mundane, and cast their enthralling shadow on characters that ache like you yourself have ached at your most private moments. Anna Noyes is a revelation.”—Alexandra Kleeman

“Lucid, sensual . . . If the fiction of Stephen King and Alice Munro had a literary love child, it might look like this: luminous domestic moments married to a pervasive sense of threat . . . Noyes is a master of disturbing juxtapositions that interpolate childhood games with sexuality, suggesting something dangerous in both . . . appealingly frank and astute . . . Noyes’s prose is admirably restrained, and the real drama remains that of character, the mystery we are to ourselves.”—Washington Post

“An improbable channeling of Flannery O’Connor on the one hand and Elizabeth Strout on the other . . . Noyes might be staking out a Northeastern Gothic genre.”—Down East Magazine

“Artful . . . [the stories] consistently sparkle with expressive detail . . . with sympathy and skill . . . Noyes’s knack for lucid prose includes providing her characters with simple language that nevertheless grasps an understanding of complex human dynamics.”—New York Times Book Review