A Court Beneath the Forth

Read sample ▶ Listen to a sample

She builds sea walls for a living. He was sent to hand her to the sea. A drowned man in her sea-gate. Her missing mother's name on his skin. Wren Balfour builds flood defences for the City of Edinburgh Council. She has spent twenty-two years keeping the sea out — ever since the summer evening her mother let go of her hand on Portobello beach and walked into the water. Then a stranger in a ferry jacket comes for the body at low water, and nobody but Wren can see him. Ronan Seil is an engineer on the Granton ferry. He is also two hundred and twelve years old, heir to a court of sea folk hidden under the old harbour wall at Leith — and he cannot tell a lie. So he tells her the truth: he has been ordered to bring her to his queen before the full-moon tide. The Salt Court is starving. The cold court of the inland lochs is coming down the Water of Leith to take the Forth. And Wren is the price of a promise her mother made before she was born. She has one October, a flood protection scheme, a best friend in a portakabin — and a man who can only ever tell her what is true. • A contemporary romantasy set in present-day Edinburgh and Leith — selkies, bargains and a flood on a spring tide. • Two narrators, a slow burn and a love story told by a hero who literally cannot lie. • Sensual, not explicit. Book one of the Salt Court series. Perfect for readers of Sarah J. Maas, Holly Black and Juliet Marillier.