KATE HORAN is a former high school teacher and the author of The Inheritance, an instant Australian bestseller. Her latest novel, On the Edge, is a suspenseful mystery novel set in a small town.
AKINA HANSEN writes.
Bestselling author Kate Horan grew up on Sydney’s Lower North Shore in Cremorne. During her teenage years, she and her friends would climb the lighthouse at Cremorne Point to look out at the water. It was on that platform that her latest novel On the Edge, was first conceived.
The white lighthouse walls were covered with graffiti, and someone had written, “To beautiful Marnie, taken too soon, sweet 16 forever, rest in peace.” I always wondered about Marnie. Who was she? What happened to her? Marnie has become Maddie in my story, and On the Edge grew from there,’ she tells me.
Set in the small town of Carrinya, On the Edge follows the unsolved murder of teenager Maddie Marshall, 16 years ago. Nel Foley, Maddie’s best friend, was the last to see her alive, and when rumours begin to circulate through the town, she is forced to flee.
‘From a thematic perspective, I’ve always been drawn to stories about wrongful accusations. One of my favourite films as a teenager was (and still is) In the Name of the Father, about the wrongful imprisonment of the Guilford Four and their decades-long fight for justice. On the Edge is a very different story, but it explores similar themes through the predicament of Nel Foley, whose life was derailed when she was accused of killing her best friend. She’s spent 16 years trying to forget what happened, but it’s only when she faces that past that she can let it go.’
Now aged 32, Nel returns to Carrinya after the sudden death of her GP father. Despite still being a social pariah, she agrees to help run her father’s practice for a few weeks until it is sold. But when she is confronted with people from her past, she becomes desperate to unravel the truth and finally clear her name.
‘I’ve always been an avid reader of Australian crime fiction, and I particularly love stories which are set in small communities, such as Jane Harper’s The Dry, or Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor.
In these stories, the setting is evocative and immersive. There’s a sense that the characters have been shaped, to some extent, by the landscape they live in.
‘The fictional town of Carrinya is inspired by a number of towns on the NSW South Coast. The characters in the story literally live “on the edge” of this vast continent we call home, in a town that is both idyllic and suffocating – everyone knows everyone and people have long memories. The lighthouse that looms above the red cliffs of Deception Bay in the story is both a beacon of safety and an ever-present reminder of danger and potential misfortune.’
Just like the lighthouse from Kate’s past, On the Edge shines a light on buried truths.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kate Horan has spent the last 17 years working in corporate communications, helping executives to pitch and present. Before that, she taught English and Drama at high schools in western Sydney where she relished inspiring teenagers with a love of reading and writing. She graduated from the University of Sydney in 2001 with an Honours degree in English Literature. After many years of feeling the niggle to write her own stories, she attended Faber Academy’s Writing a Novel program in 2020.
Kate’s debut novel, The Inheritance, was an instant Australian Bestseller. Her second novel, On the Edge, will be published by HQ HarperCollins in January 2026.
When she’s not dreaming up stories about complicated families with dark secrets, she’s chauffeuring her teenage boys to and from social engagements, listening to true crime podcasts and walking her golden lab on Sydney’s beautiful Northern Beaches.
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