Seasonal

SHE CAME FOR HER SISTER. THE LAKE HAS OTHER PLANS. Six summers ago, Josie Aldous drove to Tawas Bay, Michigan, in a yellow dress and never drove home. This summer, her sister Nell books the same cottage for the same week. Welcome to the Marrow Cottages, where the porch lights stay on, the cherry cordial is always poured, and every guest is family by the second night. Nobody quarrels. Nobody checks the time. Nobody remembers to call home. And when the whole beach gathers around the fire and sings the old hymn, every voice drops out in exactly the same place. Nell notices. That is her first mistake. It is also her only chance. SEASONAL is a sunlit, claustrophobic psychological thriller with a love story beating inside it. It is the kind of book that wrecks your evening and your trust in a stranger's kindness. This is not a story about monsters. It is about hospitality, and what happens when it has no off switch. Everyone in Tawas Bay is so warm. Everyone is so happy to see you. And every summer, a few of the guests are never quite the same, and a few are never seen again, and the town has agreed, without ever saying so, not to notice. WHY YOU WON'T PUT IT DOWN • A narrator you can't stop listening to. Nell is thirty-three, careful, and funny in the dark. Told in first person, present tense, so every dread arrives as it happens. • A villain who never raises her voice. Wynn Marrow bakes, remembers your name, and tucks you in. She has been doing this for forty years, and no one in town has ever once said no to her. • A romance with teeth. Cal Marrow has every reason to look away and one reason not to. Falling for the one person who knows what this place does is either Nell's salvation or the last thing she will ever feel. • Four 911 calls, four summers, one pattern. Every part opens with a transcript. By the time you read the last one, you will know exactly how much you hoped you were wrong. • A weapon that fits in one word. Nell has it. The question is whether she can say it before the lake teaches her to forget she ever knew it. • Dread that builds without gore. Think warm lanterns, a quiet porch, a hand that is always dry and always kind, and a sky so beautiful you almost want to walk into it. THE WEEK BEGINS WITH A WELCOME DRINK. Early in the week, Nell loses an hour she can't account for. Midweek, she finds a row of jars in a boathouse, each one labeled with initials and holding a keepsake: a ring, a tooth, a feathered hatband. By the weekend, she understands why no one who stays here ever complains about the view. And on the Fourth of July, when the fireworks go up over the bay, someone will be walked out onto the sandbar in the dark, with a kind hand holding theirs, and a voice saying, "Look at the stars. Isn't it a Tawas sky?" Nell has seven days to learn the rules, break the spell, and get out. Her only evidence is a notebook. Her only ally might be the man who grew up inside the Marrow house. Nell makes her living typing other people's words and has never said many of her own. Josie was the one who said everything. Now Nell has to find her voice in a place built to make every voice go soft and sweet and quiet, and she has to find it before the Fourth, because on the Fourth the guests are walked to the water and the music begins. READ THIS IF YOU LOVE: Lakeside small-town secrets. Cozy settings with something rotten underneath. Unreliable perceptions and unreliable kindness. Slow-burn romance in the shadow of real danger. Endings that earn their chill. A full-length novel of more than 110,000 words in four parts, with an ending that will follow you home. Come for the sunsets. Stay for the cordial. Just don't hum along. SEASONAL Another Tawas Bay Psychological Thriller Scroll up and click BUY NOW. Check in tonight. The porch light is on, and she has been expecting you.