The Bone Tide

Exiled from the mainland, a disgraced forensic pathologist is about to uncover a small town's deadly secret: some debts are paid in blood, and the sea always collects.

Dr. Elara Vance's career is in ruins. Banished to the remote, rain-lashed Crag Islands as their new coroner, she expects to spend her days signing off on fishing accidents and drownings. But when a diver's body washes ashore with a precise, post-mortem incision, her professional instincts scream one thing: murder.

The locals call it the Bone Tide-an ancient myth of a sea that demands a life every seven years. They want the case closed quickly. But Elara's autopsy reveals something chillingly deliberate. The victim wasn't just drowned; he was prepared. A small, ceremonial object was removed from his chest cavity.

Ignoring the sheriff's warnings and the town's hostile silence, Elara digs deeper. She finds a pattern of disappearances stretching back decades, each exactly seven years apart. Each victim connected to the sea. Each death covered up as an accident.

Her investigation unearths a hidden ledger of the dead, a conspiracy guarded by the island's founding families, and a terrifying truth: the Bone Tide is not a superstition. It's a meticulously maintained ritual disguising a dark, scientific experiment in tidal control-an experiment that her own mother died trying to expose.

Now, the cycle is beginning again. The tide is turning, and the islanders believe a new sacrifice is due. As a storm gathers over the Crags, Elara realizes the next name on the ritual's list is her own.

For fans of Kathy Reichs, Preston & Child, and Netflix's "Bodies," THE BONE TIDE is the gripping first book in a new forensic thriller series that will keep you guessing until the last, shocking page.