What You Made Me Do: A Novel

An expectant mother gets more than she bargained for when she marries into a seemingly perfect family in this gripping debut novel–a must read for fans of A. J. Finn and B. A. Paris.

After surviving a nightmarish childhood, Anneliese Bakker is on the mend and searching for her birth mother. But when she meets Willem, she falls madly in love and finally finds a safe place to land. Engaged and expecting her first child, she moves into the Veldkamp mansion on a stately, tree-lined avenue in Amsterdam. And yet, nothing about Willem’s family is as it seems. Instead of the loving home she has longed for her entire life, she’s confronted with a cold and hostile household.

Increasingly isolated, Anneliese is drawn to a creepy basement shrine to Louisa, Willem’s mother. Louisa Veldkamp was a legendary Dutch pianist who presumably drowned–but whose body has never been found. Though still revered by her fans, Louisa is a taboo subject in the family home. Haunted by her own demons, Anneliese must dig into the family’s past to untangle a dark web of secrets, inadvertently putting herself and her unborn child in grave danger.

Not knowing who to trust, Anneliese has to decide just how far she is willing to go to safeguard the family life she so desperately seeks.

Barbara Gayle Austin writes crime fiction. She grew up in Houston, Texas, but has spent most of her adult life in the Netherlands and the UK. She now lives in Amsterdam with her two children and her dog. What You Made Me Do is Austin’s debut novel and was longlisted for the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger award. Her short stories have been longlisted in the Margery Allingham short mystery competition and in the Aestas competition.