Janessa “Nessa” Douglas left her hometown near Chesapeake Bay nearly two decades ago. Now she’s returned to Mystic Beach, because her late grandmother Elspeth bequeathed her a coastal home there. Nessa, who’s between jobs, plans to sell the house, but Elspeth’s will stipulates that she must live there at least a month before putting it on the market. Nessa has also come into possession of a book of her grandmother’s “fairy tales,” many of which are set by the sea and feature the enigmatic Salt Widow. Some of the stories even feature characters named after real people, including Nessa’s mother, who died years ago in a car accident. Is there any truth to these tales? Nineteen-year-old Baltimore college student Ivy Camden certainly believes so. She’s been digging into lost folklore around Chesapeake Bay and is convinced that Elspeth “encoded” real-life crimes in her stories, such as a teenager’s fatal drowning in the 1960s. Nessa and Ivy put their heads together to find out what’s been happening in Mystic Beach for over half a century. But before they make much headway, Ivy inexplicably disappears. Nessa turns to local police officer Levi Graves, a friend whose father died in the same accident that killed Nessa’s mom. But when she suspects that a powerful local family is involved in nefarious goings-on, she has trouble trusting anyone. Hidden somewhere in Elspeth’s tales is a shocking truth that someone apparently wants kept quiet—even if that someone has to resort to murder.

Crowe’s novel, which kicks off a prospective series, moves at an unwavering pace. Flashbacks reveal that Ivy had been working on her project for months, so it’s no surprise that, upon arriving in Mystic Beach, she quickly connected with Nessa. Elspeth’s fairy tales, which pop up throughout the story, deliver poetic and breezy moments: “The room was small; the air heavy with beeswax and brine. Narrow shelves lined the walls, each holding shallow bowls of salt, their surfaces carved with spirals. Above them burned candles whose flames never flickered, though there was no window nor hearth.” Elspeth’s wisdom occasionally yields mixed and jumbled metaphors, though: “The sea always collects what is owed. You can throw your sins overboard, but eventually, the tide brings them back in”; “Grief is like a tide. It will return if you do not keep it fed.” They don’t notably slow the narrative, however; they’re short and integral to the plot, since they provide Nessa with the bulk of her clues. Nessa is a worthy hero—bright, tenacious, and (mostly) cautious—and she’s surrounded by an intriguing cast, with some characters who become gradually more suspicious and others who are unexpectedly accommodating. The fact that most of the characters, including Nessa, share a common past only reinforces the developing mystery. Overall, the novel feels like a stand-alone, and it’s unclear in which direction a sequel might go. Still, readers will surely welcome more of Nessa’s adventures.