Nowhere House by Adrian Beck

Title: Nowhere House

Author: Adrian Beck

Genre: Thriller

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Published: 1^st July 2026

Format: Paperback

Pages: 208

Price: $15.99

Synopsis: A cursed house. A decades-old mystery. A brother and sister on the edge. Nate is furious that he’s had to leave his school, break up his band and move to the middle of nowhere with his family. But he never imagined he’d be moving into an old farmhouse that’s been left for dead. From the moment Nate’s family arrives, he’s sure someone is watching them and a series of creepy discoveries leads him straight to danger. Soon, Nate and his little sister, Mila, uncover a chilling secret: the previous owner’s children vanished without a trace. But someone is desperate to keep the house’s secrets hidden. And if Nate can’t solve the mystery of the missing kids in time … maybe he and his sister will be next. A gripping twisty thriller that will keep readers guessing till the end.

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Adrian Beck is back with a new middle grade novel worthy of the thriller and mystery genre, with a few hints about potential ghosts and horror themes. Enter Nowhere House. Nate ad his family are moving to a new house in the middle of nowhere to a farmhouse with dark secrets. It’s been left for dead, ever since the lone owner died in mysterious circumstances.

But this is a house with secrets and curses. Where children have gone missing for decades. They have vanished without a trace. Never to be seen nor heard from again. Nate and his sister Mila keep finding notes and hints that there were children in the house before. There’s a story from decades ago about a girl who went missing and was never seen again. There are hints that there were children living there not so long ago. Modern things that suggest the kids are Mila and Nate’s age. But everyone is denying it. All the adults say there haven’t been kids there for over sixty years.

The clues are falling into place though. It’s clear that there is more going on than meets the eye. And Nate and his sister are determined to find out what happened. Given this book is set in current times, like any mystery book, it is hard for the answers not to come from technology and just be there when the characters go looking for them. But Nate and Mila know their new tutor, Alma knows more than she is telling then. She was very unsettling!

The story is set over two or three days, and the absence of technology makes this novel creepier, more unsettling and as a millennial who grew up reading books like Goosebumps, was never sure where I sat with the characters or what was really going on. It really had those vibes at times, like anything from ghosts to a real-world explanation was possible.

This makes the book equally chilling and exciting, hopefully the kind of book that will draw kids in as it did for me with its tense, fast pace driven through short chapters that are quick to read, but that are whole entities that create the story and the unsettling feeling that shapes the mystery. I found that this was very effective, having read a great deal of crime and mystery for something last year. It’s a great example of how to get into the mystery and keep it moving to keep the reader interested. It does use tropes, but very cleverly, and doesn’t get bogged down in things. I also liked the way it all came together.

It was plotted well, with all the threads dangling where they needed to, and was set up so that the isolation worked well. Isolation for books like this set in contemporary times works well. The characters need a way to solve the mystery without it being too easy, and Adrian Beck has done this really well here. It’s one of his best books yet, and I hope that readers devour this one as well.