First published 2024
Siblings Lorna and Max inherit their grandmother's decaying coastal hotel—a crumbling property with more secrets than rooms. When they arrive to assess the building's future, they discover the hotel isn't simply abandoned: it's been meticulously preserved, with each room frozen in an impossible moment from their family's fragmented history. Strange artifacts, locked chambers, and inexplicable architectural shifts suggest something more sinister than simple real estate. As they investigate the hotel's impossible architecture and their own fractured family narrative, Lorna and Max realize that leaving might be more complicated than staying—and that the building seems to have plans of its own. Something watches them from behind wallpapered walls, something that knows their bloodline better than they know themselves.
Genres: mystery, contemporary, gothic, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Coastal Hotel
151 pages · Hardcover · Johnathan Cape
Content warnings: mental-illness