About this book:

**Summary**

*The Lighthouse on Hollow Bay* is a psychological thriller centered on Maya Carter, an investigative journalist who returns to her isolated New England hometown to settle the affairs of her estranged father, Thomas, a former lighthouse keeper. Her homecoming is eclipsed by the discovery of a body under the local lighthouse—an event that mirrors the unsolved disappearance of Maya’s sister, Lena, fifteen years earlier. Though the remains are identified as a recent murder victim, Clara Maeve, the presence of Lena’s silver locket near the body forces Maya to confront a conspiracy of silence protected by the town’s elite.

As Maya digs deeper, she uncovers a decades-old smuggling ring operated through the Boyle Cannery, which has been using the lighthouse and offshore jetties to hide the illegal disposal of industrial and medical waste. The investigation reveals that the "Hollow Bay way"—a communal pact to protect the town’s economy at any cost—was responsible for Lena’s death after she discovered the corruption. Maya navigates a web of betrayals involving her father, her former lover Liam, her friend Nora, and Detective Ian Hale, eventually learning that Ian had witnessed Lena’s fatal fall and helped cover it up to "protect" the town’s stability.

The novel reaches its climax in a series of violent confrontations at a secret quarry bunker and the lighthouse tower. Mayor Cass Boyle and her accomplices attempt to destroy the evidence through arson, but Maya manages to retrieve a master ledger and a recording of the Mayor’s threats. In a final showdown in the burning lantern room, the full extent of the conspiracy is exposed, leading to the arrest of the town’s leadership and the forensic recovery of Lena’s remains from an underwater vault. In the aftermath, the town's economy and social fabric collapse under federal scrutiny. Choosing integrity over her career in the city, Maya decides to stay in the broken community to document its difficult path toward reconciliation and truth.