Some ships aren’t lost. They’re lured. And Elinor Vale reads a wreck the way other people read a signed confession.

The schooner Mercy Bell struck Gannet Reef in the flattest water Elinor has seen all month. No storm. No swell. Nothing that should have put a loaded vessel on a ledge every local pilot knows to clear. Elinor keeps the light at Grey Cape, and she keeps a weather book too, and when she walks the wreckage field at dawn, the debris is lying in exactly the wrong direction for the story everyone is about to accept.

Reading tide and current is Elinor’s whole life’s work, and it tells her plainly that the Mercy Bell did not wreck by accident. Someone on this coast wanted a ship on that reef, and Elinor is the only person who kept careful enough records to prove it.

The Wrecking Tide opens The Grey Cape Mysteries, a series about a lighthouse keeper who solves what the sea leaves behind through tide tables and cargo, not intuition.

Perfect for readers of atmospheric maritime mystery, coastal historical fiction, and puzzles solved by a heroine who trusts evidence over everyone’s convenient explanation.