The Aunt, the latest novel from Courtney Psak, is out today in the UK. A twisty tale of sibling rivalry, it is published by Hodder & Stoughton. To mark the release, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with our readers. First, here’s the synopsis:
Standing outside of my sister’s mansion, with its prime ocean views and floor to ceiling windows, I look at my baby niece and realize just how little I knew about Lexi’s new life. And how easy it was for her to keep secrets from me…
The day that Amy gets the call, her whole world falls apart. Her younger sister Lexi has been killed in a tragic boating accident, along with her husband. Despite being estranged for the last ten years, Amy never stopped loving Lexi, and the news crushes her.
But Amy is shocked when she discovers she is set to inherit Lexi’s beautiful mansion on Palm Beach, all her fortune… and her newborn daughter.
Amy is stunned — how did she not know her own sister had a baby? And when the police reveal that they are treating the accident as suspicious, Amy starts to question everything.
Did she ever really know her sister? What secrets has Lexi been hiding? Can Amy protect her baby niece, or will the truth cost her everything?
And now, on with the excerpt…!
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Prologue
Murder isn’t supposed to happen on beautiful days like this, Lexi thinks as her blood begins to pool on the light-beige carpet. Shegazes out the porthole at the bright blue sky that dips into the calm, clear ocean. She hears a seagull squawk in the distance as the water lazily laps against the yacht. She feels woozy and shifts her gaze to the high gloss wood paneling runs up to the beamed ceiling, where finedelicate lines of gold accent the cabin. Her heart rate seems to slow down and speed up at the same time. The footsteps above her are moving with urgency. Fear and adrenaline consume her as her life flashes before her eyes like photos in an album. Each person shesees brings on a different emotion. Sadness, regret, guilt, hatred; sometimes it’s all of them at once rushing at her, a dam that has burst open. Her body runs cold. This is it; she made a mistake, one too many. Now she is about to die, and she has nothing to show for it.She’s let every important person in her life down and she has to accept her fate. After everything she’s done, it’s fitting really for it all to end like this. Her luck was bound to run out sometime.
Now
Amy heads to Palm Beach with only one suitcase even though she’s not sure how long she’ll be staying for.
She is still in shock over the phone call she received from the Palm Beach Police Department. Her sisterLexi is dead. The news hit her like a bombshell, and she was left with the aftermath of loud ringing in her ears. She almost has no recollection of the conversation after that, not that there was much of one. The police wouldn’t divulge any details, only that Lexi and her husband, Hugh, were dead. Everything else she demanded to know, they explained was under investigation.
Anger boiled up inside her, mainly because she doesn’t know her sister at all anymore. She knew nothing about her life, her husband, nothing that she could even venture a guess at, as to what might have put them in a position such as this to begin with. Then again it could’ve been just a terrible accident, butAmy’s gut says otherwise.
She and Lexi had always had a complicated relationship. Being eight years older, Amy practically raised Lexi when her dad went into a depression over the death of their mom. Yet as Lexi reached her late teens, at some point Amy expected her sister to take responsibility for herself. But it was always her who wasleft cleaning up the messes, until one day, Lexi’s actions were unforgivable.
The memory of it, sharp as an ice pick and just as painful.
After Lexi disappeared, she would get postcards from all the places the two of them had once talked about traveling to together.
Pictures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the palace in Monte Carlo, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, all with Lexi’s chicken-scratched handwriting on the back with one sentence. Wish you were here.
A wave of jealousy had ripped through her like a knee-jerk reaction every time she received one. She had assumed it was an excuse for Lexi to flaunt that she was living the life Amy always wanted to have but couldn’t.
But what if that was never the case at all?
It never occurred to Amy until now that maybe this was her olive branch after their falling out. She curses herself now at her childish envy, yet that pain is still there like a scar that itches from where the skin never fully healed.
She had pulled the postcards out of her father’s old desk before she left. After her dad had died, she couldn’t afford to keep his place, so instead moved what furniture she could into her new apartment.
Now, her pointer finger plays with a folded corner of the Tower of London, as she guesses when she might have gotten this one, the date etched away. The first one was from Spain, Barcelona. It was of the Sagrada Familia. A beautiful unfinished church by the famous architect of the city, Antoni Gaudi. Exactly like the travel book that she had found in a donation bin at their local church. Before bed each night, she’d pored over the pictures of famous landmarks all over the world, and dreamed of seeing each one of them. She reminisces about young Lexi, creeping into her room most nights when she was supposed to be asleep. Her sea-blue eyes peering at her through the crack of the door. Amy would smile and lift the bedspread, as Lexi would run in and snuggle up next to her, her cheeks flushed andthe grin on her face infectious. Amy would stroke Lexi’s soft brown hair as she read to her about each place. Lexi would take it all in like Amy was reading her a fairy tale.
“Where would you go first?” Lexi’s then small voice had asked her once.
“I would go to Barcelona, because there’s no other place on earth like it.”
Amy then turned the page and showed her a picture of Antoni Gaudi. “He designed most of Barcelona,”Amy explained while flipping through some of his other iconic landmarks like Park Guell and Casa Milà.“He said his inspiration always came from nature.”
Staring now out of the plane’s window, the memory encourages Amy to pull her purse out from under the seat in front of her. She flips through the postcards and brings the Sagrada Familia to the front, examining it. To her, the outside of the church up close had always looked like it had been designed like a sandcastle you make with wet sand through your finger-tips. The kind that Amy had taught Lexi to make when they were just kids growing up at the shore.
A warmth spreads throughout her at the memory. Back when her sister was a tiny, fierce and infuriating Six-year-old, next to her know-it-all fourteen-year-old-attitude.
At that point, Amy and Lexi were best friends. It was when Lexi got older that their relationship became strained.
Amy swallows hard as she stares at the postcards, the last things that have connected her to Lexi. Amy could’ve responded through phone or email, but she didn’t. She also could never bring herself to throw them out. When Amy got the call about Lexi, she was drawn immediately to the postcards and before leaving for the airport had absentmindedly shoved them into her purse.
Amy’s eyes water. I failed her. A sinking feeling swirls in the pit of her stomach like a whirlpool. I failed her and it’s too late to fix it.
When Amy steps outside from the airport for the first time, she inhales a mixture of minerals, earth and saltwater.
A woman dressed in a coral printed silk dress rolls her designer luggage up next to Amy, who is wearing a modest T-shirt and jeans. She wonders if she should’ve dressed a little nicer. It’s been a long time since she has given more than a second thought to her appearance, not that she could afford anything that this woman has on.
Amy’s ice-blue eyes are those of a deer in headlights. There are dark-plum circles under her eyes from lack of sleep, and her cheekbones are starting to protrude—she can’t remember the last time she ate a real meal. Her once soft, creamy skin feels dry and flaky. Her dirty brown hair sticks to the back of her neck.She looks like she’s been through hell and back, and she has. But her distress goes back farther than this phone call, which just aged her another ten years.
The woman’s slender arm flags down a sleek black SUV and it’s behind it that Amy sees the sign for the taxi stand.
She makes her way over to where a cab driver, a whole-some-looking man in his fifties with a long nose and sharp chin, assists her with her bag as she pulls up the address. He types it into his navigation system and they’re off. She spends the next few minutes reading emails—including a rejection for the editor’s job she had been hoping for—and replying to them. By the time she looks up, they are going over a bridge. Shestares around in amazement. The water is a crystal blue and when she looks to her left, the city of West PalmBeach appears behind her. White, yellow and pink buildings seem to rise from the water like a mirage.
“First time here?” the driver asks, connecting eyes with her in the rear-view mirror.
“Yes,” she answers.
“It’s pretty spectacular.”
They circle a roundabout and the drive continues along the beach, each home seeming to be more expansive and more impressive than the one before. She takes in the aqua and sea-foam colors of the ocean, rolling her window down to breathe in the salty air. The road is lined with hedges on both sides, a mixture of clusia and well-trimmed topiaries. Tall palm trees sway softly with the breeze, next to private beach villas which Amy can guess are the cabanas of these massive homes. Within minutes they are passing a coral stone clocktower.
“This is Worth Avenue,” the driver announces. “It’s the Fifth Avenue of Palm Beach where you’ll find all the fancy stores and restaurants.”
Amy nods, but her reaction is dismissive. She turns her head towards the beach where several people are out on their surfboards with lifeguards looking on from their metal station towers. On the left, across the street, are large white condo buildings, enjoying prime ocean views.
They come around a bend, and they are now passing another impressive Mediterranean structure, this time with twin belvedere towers; it strikes her as familiar.
“What’s this place?”
“This is the Breakers. It’s a very fancy hotel, originally built in the late 1800s I think; it’s an historic landmark. Henry Flagler, who founded this area, owns it, well at least I think his heirs do now. But you can also become a member there. They have golf, tennis and a beach club.”
Amy recalls it now. It’s where Lexi and Hugh were married. When she received the invitation, she had looked the place up. The price for a room for one night was laughable to her, but the pictures on the website were breathtaking. Tall, arching ceilings were painted and crafted like you were in a museum rather than a hotel. While it had a haunted, historical look to it, especially with ballrooms straight out of the gilded age, it was surprisingly modern as well in areas like the hotel suites, restaurants and the private beach cabanas that snaked along the various pools.
Amy still can’t believe she didn’t go to the wedding. It was three years ago now. She knew she couldn’tafford it. But instead of telling her sister that, or staying somewhere else, she just didn’t go. Josh tried toreason with her. It was her only sister.
Amy sucks in a breath. She had wanted to go. But she was also afraid. Afraid of stepping back into the toxic relationship they had. Expecting Lexi to blow through once again like a hurricane, leaving Amy to deal with the aftermath.
Her fingernails dig hard into her palm in the back of the taxi.
The car ride is quiet for another ten minutes, the driver clearly out of facts to share. Eventually he makes a right into a driveway that is blocked by a wooden gate.
“I’m sorry, did I get the address wrong, or did we miss it?” “It’s right here.” He points to the contemporary mansion in front of them.
Amy’s mouth gapes open and she slips back into the seat in slight shock. He presses a call button, confirming her arrival, and the wooden gate slides back on a track revealing a hard-scape driveway with moss outlining the shell stone tiles in a diamond-like formation. The windows of the house are floor to ceiling, making the home appear almost translucent. During the day, the dark tint of the windows allows for some privacy, but, at night with the lights on, it must feel like being in a fishbowl. Always being watched. No wonder they had a gate.
“Best of luck to you,” the cab driver tells her as he hands her bag to her from the trunk. “Welcome to PalmBeach.”
Amy stares up at the place in awe. A knot forms in her stomach. She thinks about the second call she got shortly after she spoke with the police.
She had heard the faint buzzing coming from deep within the couch where her phone must’ve slipped between the cushions after it dropped from her hands.
“Mrs. White?” The voice sounded soft and youthful with an Italian accent.
“Yes?”
“My name is Lucia, I work for Lexi and Hugh Carrington,” she clarified. “Am I speaking with her sister Amy?”
“Um, yes,” she had said with a sense of uncertainty. She hadn’t been much of a sister to her these past years. If any-thing, they were strangers now.
“I have some rather important matters to discuss with you,” she had said, clearing her throat uncomfortably.
“Of course.” Amy tried to keep the emotion out of her voice. “Are you able to fly down to Palm Beach rightaway?” “Fly down to Palm Beach?” Why would she need to do that, she thought, before the realization hit her. “Do I have to …” Amy choked on a new rush of tears. “Identify her?”
“No,” Lucia replied. “That’s been taken care of,” she added sadly. “This matter isn’t concerning the investigation.”
“Then what is this about?” But as Lucia explained, a fog settled over her mind making it impossible to see or think straight. She must have misunderstood what Lucia said to her. Her own tragic memories clearly colliding with the reality.
Amy didn’t say anything for a long time. It couldn’t be right.
It didn’t make any sense. How could she not have known? “Amy?” The voice on the other end spoke again.
“I’m sorry, what did you say? I must’ve heard you wrong,” she said, standing up as if this would somehow give her better reception.
“I’m the Carrington’s nanny. I’m calling because I need to discuss with you the welfare of the baby.”
Excerpted from The Aunt © 2026 by Courtney Psak. Reprinted with permission from Hodder & Stoughton, an imprint of Hachette UK. All rights reserved.
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Courtney Psak’s The Aunt is out today, published by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK.
Civilian Reader 