Be careful of the story you tell yourself. It might become the one you believe.

Destiny cannot count on anyone but herself. Her mother has struggled with addiction for most of Destiny’s life, moving them from town to town, bad boyfriend to bad boyfriend—including a particularly dark period in Texas, where Destiny ended up in a psychiatric hospital. But Destiny’s mother is newly sober and stable. And Destiny is falling in love.

Destiny never believed in happily ever after, but that doesn’t stop her confidence from fraying when the first guy she ever trusted casually shatters her heart. Spiraling hard, she tells a tiny, desperate lie to buy herself a moment of hope. But as the lie grows and the pressures tangle, she gets lost in her own deception, and the line between truth and fantasy starts to blur.

With time untethered and her perception in knots, Destiny must find a way to reclaim her story and weave a new ending—before the beginnings unravel.

“Anica Mrose Rissi has crafted a haunting, bold portrait of a young woman whose world has reached fever pitch, whose grief has taken on a life of its own. Unputdownable and exquisitely written, Girl Reflected in Knife is chilling yet beautiful, fantastical yet all too real, as we follow one girl through the looking glass. I will be thinking about this book for a very long time to come.”—Amber Smith, New York Times bestselling author of The Way I Used to Be and The Way I Am Now

“Anica Mrose Rissi has written a mind-warping gut punch of a book. I raced through this one with equal parts dread and curiosity, desperate to see how Destiny’s story would explode and unravel.”—Emily X.R. Pan, New York Times bestselling author of The Astonishing Color of After and An Arrow to the Moon

“Girl Reflected in Knife is simply jaw-dropping. It is brave and unblinking, imaginative and revelatory. Here is a true fractured fairy tale in every sense, showing the immense power in the stories you tell to yourself and the stories you need to believe in order to survive.”—Nova Ren Suma, New York Times bestselling author of The Walls Around Us and Wake the Wild Creatures

“Girl Reflected in Knife is beautiful and haunting, the kind of book that nests inside you, the kind of book you make space for and talk about and shove into the hands of everyone you know.” —Shaun David Hutchinson, award-winning author of We Are the Ants

Coming on April 7, 2026, in hardcover, ebook, and audio

PREORDER NOW: Bookshop | B&N | Amazon | BAM | Apple Books | Libro | Audible | Indigo | Kobo | Google Play | Target | Penguin Random House | or ask for it at your local bookstore or library

Add Girl Reflected in Knife on Goodreads

Recommended for ages 14 and up