Anna Downes

All The Stars Are Gone by Anna Downes 

When aspiring actress Emily finds herself auditioning for the role of a piece of cheese, she realises how much her life sucks. She’s jobless, penniless, essentially homeless and a massive disappointment to her adoptive parents. Oh, and she’s a magnet for sexual harassment. In short, things couldn’t get worse.

Enter Scott Denny, a multi-millionaire who seems to offer all the answers to Emily’s problems. But Scott has his own problems, much darker and more terrible than Emily can imagine.

When Emily accepts a job working at Scott’s remote estate in France, she finds herself living at close quarters with Scott, his wife and their six-year-old daughter. As her relationship with each family member grows and her feelings towards them become more complicated, Emily falls down a rabbit-hole of wealth and extravagance and cuts ties with her former life. But soon she has questions. Why do the Dennys live such an isolated life? What is the mysterious illness from which Scott’s daughter is suffering? And what has Scott done that makes him drink and cry and harm himself?

Emily is about to uncover a devastating secret and soon she must make a choice. Will she destroy her own happiness to protect the people she has come to love?

ALL THE STARS ARE GONE is Liane Moriarty meets THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS. A literary/commercial fiction novel of 85,000 words, the story is based on my experiences working as a housekeeper on a French estate in 2009 and 2010.


Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

Listen to our feedback on All The Stars Are Gone.