Shadows at Low Tide

A golden retriever barrels into Bottled Clues with a sea-green bottle. Inside: a sun-faded scrap, “the map… the tide that hides.” Hours later, chaos erupts backstage at Seabridge Cove’s festival and the bottle vanishes.

Marina Ellis, ex–forensic linguist turned bookseller, follows a trail of planted messages toward a tide-hidden cove and a rumor someone would kill to keep. With only her wits, her bottle wall, and Gulliver’s nose, she has one tide cycle to read the story the culprit is writing before the next secret washes ashore.

A cozy seaside mystery with a message-in-a-bottle twist.