The Body Kept Score: BOOK TWO (Deadman’s Daughter 2)

The Body Kept Score
A Deadman’s Daughters Novel

By Trudy Myrland

Some scars you can see.
Others you inherit.

Lark Welles has spent a lifetime running from the flames. Daughter of a cult leader who orchestrated one of the most horrific mass self-immolations in American history, she’s built a quiet life under a new name, buried her past in concrete, and trained herself never to look back. But when a series of burned bodies appear across multiple states—each victim arranged in patterns that mirror the old cult’s rituals—Lark is forced to confront the one thing she swore she never would: the truth about what happened the night her family died.

Elijah Cross has lived that truth. Once a devout believer in the Eden’s Wake commune, he narrowly escaped the inferno with his life—and nothing else. Now a private investigator specializing in cult recovery cases, Elijah recognizes the signatures in the murders instantly. Someone is not just copying the rituals. They’re reviving the belief system. And they’re sending a message.

When the FBI turns to Lark for insight, she refuses—until a photograph lands on her doorstep: a child dressed in ceremonial white, flames licking at her heels. A child that looks just like Lark once did. A child who shouldn’t exist.

The deeper Lark and Elijah dig, the more twisted the puzzle becomes. Each body is marked with fragments from the original cult manifesto—entries no one but the inner circle should have known. Survivors are being hunted. Secrets sealed in ash are reemerging in flesh and fire. And at the heart of it all lies a devastating possibility: someone Lark loved may have survived the fire—and become something unrecognizable.

As their investigation tightens, so does the noose around them. The killer knows their movements. Anticipates their questions. Manipulates their trauma like a conductor guiding a symphony of suffering. For Lark, the only way to stop this is to return to the ruins of Eden’s Wake, where the final truth—and the final victim—awaits.

But not all ghosts are dead. And not all fires die out.

Dark, unflinching, and emotionally devastating, The Body Kept Score is a psychological thriller that claws into the wounds of inherited trauma, religious fanaticism, and the body’s relentless memory. Fans of Tarryn Fisher, Gillian Flynn, and Lisa Gardner will be riveted by this second installment of the Deadman’s Daughters series.

Trudy Myrland, acclaimed author of Blood Ties, returns with a harrowing exploration of belief, identity, and survival in a world where salvation sometimes comes dressed in fire.