Hollow Tide, Oregon
A working harbor town on a foggy stretch of the Pacific coast, where nobody finds the neighbors remarkable.
The town that stopped pretending
In 1978 the cryptids stopped hiding. The Disclosure Treaty made it official, and the world adjusted the way the world does: unevenly, loudly, and then not at all.
Hollow Tide adjusted faster than most, largely by declining to make a fuss. Here a kraken can hold a contractor’s license, a selkie can farm oysters, and a lighthouse can be kept by someone who is not quite a woman. The town knows. The town brings a casserole when someone is grieving and argues about the tide tables at the diner.
That settledness is the point. These are not books about humans discovering that monsters are real. They are books about neighbors.
Where things are
The harbor runs the working day: boats out early, the fish house, the long grey light off the water.
The lighthouse at Cape Herring sits up the coast on its own headland, kept by one person and lit every night of the year.
The Roost is the bookshop and cafe, where the proprietor bakes on the premises and has firm views about the lemon bars.
The Cannery Food Hall took over the old cannery and now holds a row of counters, each cooking whatever the bay gives that week.
The oyster beds lie out in the bay, worked at low tide by someone who knows the water better than the water does.
The lake is east of town, out of sight of the coast road, and older than the road by a good margin.
Who you will meet
Ewan Macrae · lake kraken, contractor, three years a widower. Arrives at seven a.m. with a binder. Saltwick, Book One.
Naia Orris · mothman, keeper of the Cape Herring light for nine years, and very good at not letting anyone stay. Cape Herring, Book Two.
Callum Brine · selkie, oyster farmer, the most woven-in man in town and quietly certain he can never want anything the open water might take him for. Saltkettle, Book Three.
Asa Holt · centaur, cartwright and haulier, raising his sister’s daughter and carrying every weight the town hands him. Bellwether, Book Four.
What the books promise
Cozy paranormal romance. Open door. A guaranteed happily-ever-after, every time. Found family running through all of it, a slow burn, and a different cryptid in every book.
Every one is a standalone, so you can start anywhere. A new one arrives on the first of every month.