Drowned Lanterns

About this book

Six months after her little sister vanished from a Ha Long Bay cruise, Marin Hale books a berth on the same battered junk, posing as a travel journalist. Its scarred captain goes still when he sees her face, and something moves by lantern-light. A slow-burn romantic suspense.

Six months ago, Marin Hale’s little sister vanished from a Ha Long Bay cruise. The police called it a girl who wandered off. Marin knows better. So she books a berth on the same battered tourist junk, posing as a travel journalist, and sails into the one place that might give her sister back.

What she finds is a bay with a secret. A silent, scarred captain who goes still the moment he sees Posy’s face in hers. A charming stranger who photographs everything and admits nothing. And a smuggling ring that moves stolen heritage by lantern-light through the drowned caves of the archipelago — a ring that would rather see a witness disappear than a shipment seized.

Caught between the man who hides what he loves to keep it safe and the man whose justice could get her sister killed, Marin has to decide what she believes about love, and about letting go. Because the thing she came to save was never only Posy. And the truth waiting at the bottom of the bay will cost her the one wound she swore she’d never survive.

A sweeping, slow-burn romantic suspense set among the limestone islands of northern Vietnam, DROWNED LANTERNS is a story about the things the water takes, the things it gives back, and the courage it takes to carry a light in the open. Warm heat. A love earned through the wound. A happily-ever-after you’ll have to hold your breath for.