Chapter 1
Every once in a while, there’s a winter fog so thick you can barely see in front of you. It rolls in with the mulled wine and the fake Santas and the Christmas lights on Oxford Street, around the time everyone starts mumbling about seasonal affective disorder like it’ll kill you. It rolls in with no warning and casts an intoxicating magic, the kind that belongs in story books. The kind that makes you want to stand still forever, lose yourself and just breathe it in.
He was like that fog.
He stopped me in my tracks and reminded me of what it was to have a heartbeat. So that’s how I ended up here, at Archway tube station, wearing huge sunglasses at 9.07 pm in case I cry.
I look up at the board: three minutes. The next train is due in three minutes.
I just need to hold it together for three more minutes. Then I’ll be on my way home. I can do this.
The platform reeks of urine, and I can hear rats scuttling in the distance. A woman arrives, earbuds in, scrolling through her phone. A roll of silver wrapping paper pokes out the top of her bag, which makes sense. It’s five days before Christmas and she, unlike me, probably has people to see. Presents to wrap. Tinsel and little blinking lights to twist around branches, and little rocking horse ornaments to hang. I bite down on my lower lip, staring at an advertisement on the wall opposite me. It’s for a telephone company—a couple talking to each other on FaceTime. I think it’s meant to be long distance. I can see the love in their eyes.
And me? I’m going to be alone forever.
Don’t cry Aubrey, don’t you dare cry.
I look up to the board again: one minute.
Flashes from tonight flicker through my mind. Jonathan, looking at me as he said, ‘Aubrey, you texted me one hundred and four times this week … It’s not your fault, it’s a beautiful thing that you’re so loving. And we were both swept up by it, like we’d lost our minds, but it’s all too much now …’ His voice cracked. ‘I think we need a break … before it gets toxic.’
As I looked into his eyes, all I wanted was to tell him everything, to make him understand … but I couldn’t.
So instead, I said, ‘A break? For how long?’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know, but … a while.’
I knew what that meant: we were breaking up. How could this be happening? But shit, now my lip was quivering—I was going to cry. And if I did that, he’d definitely think I was toxic.
I needed to get out of there.
So I just said, ‘I … think I should go.’
Then he walked me out of the kitchen, through the living room, past the red and brown floor rug, the rug we’d slow-danced on, and across to the front door. All while his roommate-slash-business partner, Baxter, watched on silently from the sofa.
He opened the door, looked at me one last time and something tugged at my ribs as he said, ‘bye’, and I said, ‘bye’ and then he closed the door. I just stood there for a moment, staring at the heritage-green paint, and then I heard him say to Baxter, ‘Fuck, I really thought she was the one.’
And that was it. The moment my heart broke. Because, for a brief moment, I had been in the warmth, basking in the light. Now I was back out in the cold night air, where I have always been.
Where I always will be. Where I belong. Because I’m broken and I can’t be fixed.
A rumble sounds in the distance. Lights flicker in the tunnel. I take a deep breath and step forward to the edge of the platform.
There’s a rush of dusty air. I close my eyes. And then …
I jump.
There is this elastic moment that stretches and bends and all I can feel is … lightness. Hope. Redemption.
But then: the high-pitched screech of brakes. A big bang.
The world goes dark. Pitch black.
And I am dead.
Okay, I don’t jump, but I want to. I want to do things like that a lot, to be honest. Anything to escape this world. But I already know how that would play out.
I’d feel the heat of the train above me. The darkness around me. Voices would be yelling from the platform, calling for help, security people would arrive. And me? I’d be lying on the tracks with not a scratch on me. Or if I did have a scratch, it would heal within moments. There would be no broken bones. No blood. The CCTV hanging from the ceiling would have captured it all. As I crawled off the tracks, I’d have to explain how I survived completely unscathed. If I couldn’t do that to their satisfaction, if they ever figured out what I was, I’d end up in a scientific testing facility, with tubes up my nose and wires stuck to my skull for all of eternity. Which, frankly, sounds like a fate worse than death.
It’s not worth the risk.
I know all this because I’ve tried it before. And … I can’t die.
I can’t die because I am already dead.
I’m a vampire. And you’d think, after more than a century, I’d have life all figured out.
© 2026 Pip Knight. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from AUBREY WANTS TO DIE. Used with permission.
Love is hard. Being undead is harder ... Dolly Alderton meets True Blood in this dark, funny hell of a story
Aubrey is not what she seems. She's young, beautiful, romantic, obsessive and ... a vampire. All she wants is to be human again, and failing that, she wants to die. But the problem is, she can't. Not by stake through the heart or holy water or crucifix or garlic or fire. And she'd know, she's tried every method ... Twice.
So she's stuck here on this earth, all alone. Even the vampire who made her this way - an aristocratic douchebag called Oscar - has abandoned her.
But everything changes when one fateful night, she meets Jonathan. He's everything Aubrey's ever dreamed of, and what's more, he's her soulmate. Her Bella-Edward story. For the first time in 150 years, she has a reason to hope - eternal life might be bearable after all. So when Jonathan unexpectedly breaks up with her, she'll do anything to get him back.
But that's the exact moment Oscar swoops back into her life. And he has other plans for her. Soon, she's thrown into a world of glamour, glitter, blood and hedonism, a world that has her questioning everything she knows to be true-about life, but also about herself. A world where nothing is simple ... And no-one is safe, either.
Fantasy | Romance Paranormal [ Hanover Square Press, On Sale: March 3, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781335001436 / eISBN: 9780369774781 ]
Pip Knight is the bestselling Australian author of five novels, writing under a new name. Her hugely popular dark and sexy psychological thrillers feature a dash of romance and black humour, featuring brilliantly flawed women. With Aubrey Wants to Die, Pip Knight brings all the exciting trademarks of her much loved novels - just with vampires. She lives in Sydney.
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