What happens when an influencer couple, famous for their ‘free-range parenting’ let their nine-year-old son and his friend sleep overnight in the bush… and the boys don’t come back?

SURVIVAL NOTES
by Michelle Haines Thomas
Text Publishing, January 2027

When nine-year-old Freddie and his friend go missing in the bush, their parents scramble to blame each other. Why did they let the boys camp out alone? And why did the boys disappear? In the small hinterland town, the online backlash against the adults is brutal.

The terrifying threat of a bushfire accelerates the race to find the children. The editor of the local newspaper, single-mother Justine, has her own secrets to protect. Then her elder daughter goes missing, too. As everything implodes around Justine, her past comes back to haunt her. How far will she go to rescue the children?

Michelle Haines Thomas takes us into the hearts and minds of characters confronting their worst nightmare. SURVIVAL NOTES is a superlative heart-in-your-mouth literary thriller, with commercial overtones.

Michelle Haines Thomas has been writing novels most of her life, in between her work as a journalist and raising a family. She is the recipient of a residential writing fellowship at Varuna, has a MA in Writing from the University of Technology in Sydney, and has published or broadcast fiction and reviews in a range of publications. Michelle now works in marketing and lives with her family on the NSW Central Coast.