Why we’re excited
A forensic assistant once idolised Miller Banks, the pathologist she worked beside. Then seven bodies came across her table and the evidence pointed to him. Two years after he vanished and was presumed dead, he turns up alive in the woods and takes her with him, insisting he is innocent.
Jennifer Hartmann's survival romance Still Beating went viral on BookTok, and this standalone pushes further into thriller territory. It suits readers who like dark romance with a captor-and-captive setup and a murder mystery that keeps them guessing about who to trust.
On our most-anticipated list since 22 October 2026. See all the most anticipated books →
What to know about Dead Things
There are no reviews of Jennifer Hartmann’s books on The Bookish Elf yet.
From the publisher
A forensic assistant is pulled into the wilderness by a beguiling fugitive accused of murder in this taut, emotionally-charged erotic thriller, as the author of the Booktok-viral survivor romance
Still Beating
explores how love can take root in even the darkest places.
Dead bodies always tell the truth. You just have to listen.
As a forensic assistant, I live among the dead—cataloging wounds, dissecting silence, searching for the truths people try to hide. It’s the only place I’ve ever trusted what’s real. Until Miller Banks.
We once worked side by side. He was the brilliant forensic pathologist I idolized. The man I watched with adoring eyes, certain there was nothing he couldn’t solve.
Then the murders started. Seven bodies on my table. And every trail led back to him.
Miller vanished two years ago, presumed dead. But he isn’t in the grave. He’s in the woods. And now, so am I.
He swears he won’t hurt me. That he didn’t kill those people. That he needs me to see the truth no one else would. I call him a monster.
Yet the longer I’m bound to him, the more the lines blur—between guilt and innocence, truth and obsession, predator and protector. Because sometimes the one who holds you captive . . . is the only one who can set you free.
Description supplied by the publisher.
We haven’t read Dead Things yet. When our review goes up, it will replace this page.
