Out 1 DecemberThe Dark & Dangerous Thrillers Collection · Out 1 December
Little Apples Grow
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Rosie Hart is the perfect carer. Gentle hands, soft voice, endless patience. She’s moving into a crumbling house in Highgate that backs onto the cemetery, to look after Vi Driscoll, the dying matriarch of the most feared family in the East End. The Driscolls think they’ve hired some help. They haven’t. Rosie has her own reasons for being there, and kindness isn’t one of them. This family has buried a great many things over the years. Rosie has come to find out where.
Inside the story
She came to care for a dying woman. She came for revenge.
Rosie Hart takes a live-in job caring for Vi Driscoll, a dying woman in a crumbling house in Highgate whose garden backs right onto the cemetery. The pay is good. The house is cold. The family is something else.
Vi once ruled a gangland firm, and her sons Ray and Dessie are still not men you want to cross. Rosie knows exactly who the Driscolls are. She has known for years. They took her dad from her, and she has come to collect.
Every night Rosie brushes out Vi’s long white plait and listens to her stories. Some are funny. Some will make your skin crawl. The longer Rosie stays, the harder it gets to remember why she came.
Little apples grow. It’s an old Irish saying, and it means what goes around comes around. In Ashcombe House, it’s coming around for somebody.
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The house on the cemetery wall
Ashcombe House, Highgate
Ashcombe House stands on the edge of Highgate with the cemetery at the bottom of its garden, all damp walls, locked rooms and creaking stairs. Vi’s memories take the story back to the pubs and back streets of old Hoxton, where the Driscolls made their name. Want to walk it yourself? Read The real London behind the books.
Questions
Little Apples Grow questions answered
When does Little Apples Grow come out?
1 December 2026. You can pre-order the Kindle edition on Amazon now.
What does the title mean?
Little apples grow is an old Irish saying. It means wrongs get paid back in the end.
Is it a gangland book or a psychological thriller?
It’s a psychological thriller with a gangland family at its heart, so you get the tension of Freida McFadden and the London grit of Martina Cole.
Where is Little Apples Grow set?
In Ashcombe House, a crumbling old house in Highgate, North London, whose garden backs onto the cemetery.
Does it need a content warning?
Yes. It includes scenes of domestic abuse, written honestly.
How long is Little Apples Grow?
378 pages.
Watch the trailer
If this one gets under your skin
Kadie Vellis
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