A writer of novels and short stories.
A new novel coming April 2026
'All my fears have vanished, and I realise now that my dreams were not nightmares but a sign of what was to come, how this will end. An inevitability.'
Things were looking up for Astrid Aspden and her partner, Kit, until their house flooded. With Astrid's first solo art exhibition just weeks away, her paintings are ruined and excitement has turned to despair.
She is thrown a lifeline when her best friend Flora invites her to stay in a run-down chapel she and her partner, Sim, are renovating in the Brecon Beacons. As Astrid and Kit settle into their new surroundings to salvage her work, they soon learn about the unsettling history of the chapel and what lies beneath the nearby reservoir.
As the weeks go by, tensions simmer between Astrid and Flora as sour memories flare up from their teenage past and deep wounds are laid bare from an ill-fated school trip to Florence.
Astrid’s relationship with Kit begins to fray as the chapel and the surrounding hostile beauty of the valley begin to intrude on their lives. She throws herself into her work but the longer she spends in the chapel the more she begins to notice things: handprints on her paintings, shadowy figures reflected in the reservoir and voices whispering in the night. As the darkness of the Welsh valley closes in on Astrid, will she be able to run from the looming horror or be consumed by it?
Whether it is the past, the otherworldly, or the truth - they all haunt this menacing and claustrophobic slice of Welsh folk horror.
[A] claustrophobic folk horror . . . Expect figures looming in the shadows and whisperings in the night – Sunday Times Style
A perfect psychological folk horror, where the internal landscape of its protagonist and the external landscape of the Brecon Beacons join together to become an uncanny piece of art. This is a story that carefully unravels its subjects, in which old sins cast long shadows and something dark is always lurking just beneath the surface – Laura Elliott, author of Awakened
A considered, clever, creeping ghost story, with dark depths and dangerous undercurrents. Lucie McKnight Hardy is one of the best writers of the uncanny around – Alison Littlewood, author of A Cold Season
Lucie McKnight Hardy is the Queen of Dread – Priya Sharma, author of Ormeshadow and All the Fabulous Beasts
Night Babies is a wonderful novel; dark, disturbing, devastating. Lucie McKnight Hardy at the height of her uncanny powers – Amanda Mason, author of The Wayward Girls and The Hiding Place
Night Babies had me in its dark clutches from the very beginning. A beautifully written and cleverly constructed literary ghost story, exploring truth and perception in the eeriest of manners – Rachelle Attalla, author of Thirsty Animals
A modern classic of the folk horror genre – Johnny Mains, editor of Celtic Weird
You don't know the water's encroaching , but all of a sudden, Lucie McKnight Hardy has dragged you beneath the surface, and you are in an inescapable maelstrom of foreboding with an intense sense of imminent horror. There is no escape, you must read on. This story sticks to you like bitter black treacle – Robin Ince, presenter and author
Night Babies is an utterly compulsive, pitch-black slice of folk horror – Ally Wilkes, author of Where the Dead Wait and All the White Spaces
Reading this book is one long, slow, watery descent into uncanny territory. Lucie McKnight Hardy is the queen of atmospheric folk horror – Tracey Fahey, author of They Shut Me Up