The Silent Girl in White: How a Song Sparked a Chilling Novel

It began with a song.

As Alan Walker’s Faded echoed in her headphones, a single haunting image took hold in Hannah Sarah Abraham’s mind: a girl in a white frock, soaked in blood, standing alone in the dark. That moment of creative clarity became the seed for Children of The Dead, her latest novel—a chilling mystery steeped in grief, resilience, and buried truths.

Set in the quiet town of Maranello, Italy, the story unravels inside a children’s home where trauma hangs heavy and secrets fester in silence. At the center of it are Laura and Luca—one a twin sister desperate for answers, the other a loyal friend walking the edge of loss. Together, they search for Giulia, Laura’s twin, who disappeared without a trace. Everyone else has given up. But Laura can’t. She won’t.

What follows is a journey into the shadows of childhood and the systems meant to protect it. The deeper they dig, the more tangled the truth becomes—until the line between innocence and guilt, love and betrayal, begins to blur.

But Children of The Dead is not just about a disappearance. It’s about the things that disappear within us: trust, safety, voice.

“I’m drawn to stories where silence says more than words,” Hannah reflects. “Where pain isn’t always loud, but it’s there—pressing in.”

That quiet power runs through all her work. Now 22 and pursuing her Master’s in English Literature at Anna Adarsh College in Chennai, the Malayali writer blends her academic insight with lyrical storytelling. Her previous novel, T.E.A.R.S., marked her as a bold voice unafraid to confront themes of trauma, identity, and justice.

With Children of The Dead, Hannah dives even deeper, spotlighting the vulnerability of orphans, the failures of broken institutions, and the quiet rebellion of those who refuse to be erased.

“I write for those who are overlooked—girls, women, children whose stories are too often silenced,” she says.

Inspired as much by music as by literature, Hannah’s writing carries rhythm, emotion, and intent. Her prose doesn’t just tell stories—it reveals the structures that shape them: caste, class, gender, religion. These aren’t abstract ideas in her world. They’re barriers her characters face every day.

In a literary landscape crowded with formulas and market trends, Hannah’s compass is different: she follows feeling. She listens deeply—to music, to silence, to the pain beneath the surface—and transforms that into fiction with a pulse.

In Children of The Dead, the mystery may be fiction. But the fear of being forgotten, unheard, unloved? That part is heartbreakingly real.

Get your copy of Children of the Dead in Amazon