The Counting Game

 

The woods have taken girls before. When it happens again, the only witness is a boy. And he won’t talk. 

Thank you Simon Audio for the gifted audiobook. 

The Counting Game, Sinéad Nolan’s debut novel, is more psychological thriller than police procedural. If you go in knowing that, you’re going to love it.

Southwest Ireland, 1995. Saoirse Kellough goes missing from a forest that has swallowed girls before. The only witness is her little brother Jack and he’s not talking. The village whispers about hauntings. 

The Gardaí are desperate. So they bring in Freya Hemmings, a psychotherapist carrying her own grief, to gently coax the truth out of the traumatized nine-year-old who has sworn to protect the forest’s secrets.

What really worked for me were the characters. Jack is heartbreaking. Freya is complex and compelling. She’s the one who ultimately drives the investigation forward, not just the detectives. And the family dynamics are complicated. The oldest sibling Kate had to leave college to raise Jack and Saoirse after their mother’s death, and that trauma comes through on every page. This family was already carrying so much before the woods took Saoirse.

The atmosphere is thick and genuinely eerie. Nolan grew up in the forests of County Dublin, and it shows. These woods feel alive in all the wrong ways.

My one honest critique: the pacing. I’m more of an action-oriented reader, so slow-burn psychological thrillers require a little patience from me. This one asks for it. If you read Tana French and love lingering in a mystery, you’ll be completely in your element.

I did figure out the whodunit before the end, but I stayed invested anyway, which says something.

The audiobook narration from Alana Kerr Collins and Jessica Regan is excellent. Their dual narration gives Freya and Jack distinct voices and makes it easy to track the shifting perspectives. The emotional weight of this story lands differently when you can hear it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Out now. 

If you find this book intriguing, you might like Imposter.

About the Author

Sinéad Nolan grew up playing in the forests and on the beaches of leafy County Dublin, Ireland. She was a regular freelance feature writer for the Sunday World and the Irish Independent and has had short stories shortlisted for the Momaya Press Awards and the Francis McManus Awards for RTE Radio. Apart from writing, she works in private practice as a BACP Registered Counsellor seeing clients in central London.