Dark Days Hotel | Anna Downes in Conversation
Location
Hosted by
Fullers Bookshop
About
One dark winter night, a young woman – barefoot, in silk pyjamas and holding a hotel room key – collapses in the carpark of a Tasmanian hospital. The only witness is Liv, an exhausted emergency nurse who fails to save her.
Haunted by her mistake and determined to discover the woman’s identity, Liv's search takes her to remote wilds of Macquarie Heads. There an exclusive health resort rises from the coastline: the Aonaran, where the ultra-wealthy come to reset, renew, and remake themselves.
For Liv, whose 'self-care' involves sneaking Valium mid-shift and burying everything she feels, this promise is almost enough to distract her from her search.
But the deeper Liv goes, the more unsettling the resort becomes. A staff member has vanished. The guests seem to be watching her. And beneath the Aonaran’s serene surface, a different kind of transformation is taking place – one that will force Liv to ask: what is the true cost of a better life, and is she prepared to pay?
Anna Downes is an internationally bestselling author and former actor, born in the UK and now based in Australia. She lives on the NSW Central Coast, just north of Sydney, with her husband and two children. Her internationally bestselling debut novel, The Safe Place, was published simultaneously in Australia, the US and the UK in 2020 and was shortlisted for the 2021 Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards. The Shadow House was published in 2021 in Australia and New Zealand followed by publication in the UK and the USA in 2022. Both have been translated into over ten different languages. Her third novel Red River Road was an instant bestseller upon release in 2024, reaching number five on the national Top Ten and spending six weeks as the number one Australian fiction title, and was shortlisted for the 2025 ABIA for General Fiction Book of the Year.
As an ABC journalist, Rebecca Armitage has reported extensively on the royals and became fascinated by Harry and Meghan when they chose to step away from the royal family. She is the digital editor for the ABC's International Desk. She was previously a multiplatform producer with the ABC's Specialist Reporting Team and a producer at 7.30. She lives in Tasmania with her husband.
Join Anna and Rebecca at the Afterword Cafe.