About this book:

The discovery of a misfiled ledger in the Glass Harbor municipal archive sends archivist Nora Hale spiraling into her town’s dark past. The ledger, which hints at financial irregularities surrounding the legendary *Sea Serpent* shipwreck, implicates the powerful Pike family and their long-standing shipyard. Her investigation is met with immediate hostility, starting with the fearful warnings of her childhood friend, Jonah Mercer, whose family has long been entangled with the Pikes and who carries the weight of a terrible secret. When a hidden blueprint and a cryptic photograph of a young Jonah with Michael Pike suggest the 50-year-old tragedy was no accident, Nora realizes the official story is a carefully constructed lie.

The search for the truth becomes a desperate fight for survival as the Pikes, led by the ruthless matriarch Eleanor and her violent son Michael, move to silence Nora permanently. A terrifying confrontation at the derelict glassworks confirms her suspicions, and a cryptic letter from her late husband, Mark, provides a new, chilling direction for her investigation. With the local police compromised and Jonah’s old loyalties tested, Nora and Jonah are forced to operate in the shadows, trusting no one but each other. Their pursuit of a primary ledger containing the ultimate proof exposes a long-buried crime of embezzlement and murder, a conspiracy reaching into the highest levels of the town’s authority. As they follow a trail of clues left by her husband, they uncover the horrifying truth behind the *Sea Serpent*'s final voyage.

Their race for the damning evidence culminates in a violent confrontation at the town's annual Harbor Day festival, where Michael Pike makes a final, desperate attempt to preserve his family's legacy at any cost. The ensuing chaos forces Nora and Jonah into a storm-lashed chase that leads them to the isolated lighthouse, the town’s oldest sentinel. Cornered and with the truth in their hands, they must make one last stand to bring the light to a darkness that has festered for half a century. In the storm’s wake, as a new dawn breaks over Glass Harbor, Nora and Jonah must confront the personal cost of the secrets they have unearthed and decide what, if anything, can be salvaged from the wreckage of the past.