First published 2026
Phillip Tennent walks the shoreline every day, gathering whatever the Channel spits onto the beach. The crisis years back broke the world in ways no one talks about clearly. The government limps along. Strange life forms swim in the waters. Europe disappeared somehow. Phillip knows how to survive in this broken landscape by sticking to what he can touch and sell. Then he pulls something from the waves that refuses to stay the same shape. This thing shifts and changes while he watches. He cannot sell it. He cannot ignore it. Every instinct tells him to throw it back, but something stronger compels him to carry it away from the water. The journey inland means leaving behind everything familiar. It means facing whatever the crisis really did to the world. The creature in his hands might destroy his small, careful life. But Phillip walks inland anyway, carrying his burden toward an uncertain revelation.
Genres: science-fiction, dystopia, literary-fiction, post-apocalyptic
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, journey
Setting: Channel, Europe
Period: Crisis Years
224 pages · Hardcover · Serpent's Tail