The Rope Beneath Her Skin (Final Fall Book 1)
About
FINAL FALL
A Psychological Thriller from : Laura Carpenter
Sometimes the past doesn’t stay buried.Sometimes it hunts.
Rain claws at the windows. The streets of Belfast glisten with secrets. And someone is killing women in a way that feels hauntingly familiar.
When forensic pathologist Elisha Reade is called home after the death of a woman found wearing a purple satin ribbon, she thinks it’s just a tragic coincidence. Until she sees the body. Until she sees the scar.
The same ribbon once marked her. The same night nearly took her life.
The case forces Elisha into the path of Cormac Dempsey, a man she hasn’t seen in seventeen years — not since the night of the fire. He’s older now, harder. A brooding ex-boxer turned trauma response specialist who’s been walking a tightrope of guilt ever since that night broke them both.
They made a promise once.
To never speak of what happened.
To never go back.
But the killer has other plans.
As more victims appear — each posed with disturbing intimacy and messages pulled from their past — Elisha and Cormac must unravel a decade-old mystery while confronting the darkness they barely survived.
But memory is a dangerous thing. And the closer they get to the truth, the more they realize:
the killer isn’t just recreating the past… he’s rewriting it.
Darkly addictive, emotionally charged, and razor-sharp in its tension, Final Fall is the first in a psychological thriller trilogy for fans of:
The Fall (Gillian Anderson / Jamie Dornan)
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson
And readers who crave trauma recovery, morally complex leads, and slow-burn intimacy layered beneath haunting suspense
What readers are saying:
“Absolutely chilling. I couldn’t breathe for the last hundred pages.”
“Cormac and Elisha broke me. Then they put me back together.”
“Like if Broadchurch and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had a baby in the rain.”
“This is more than a thriller. It’s about guilt, grief, survival… and the person who never let you go.”
Trigger Warnings (for sensitive readers):
Themes include trauma, PTSD, childhood abuse (off-page), stalking, implied sexual assault (past), violence, and emotional grief. All handled with care and realism.
Are you ready to remember what they buried?
Because the truth is coming.
And this time, there’s nowhere to run.