The Salt Court

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.

On the longest night of the year Wren is to carry the Salt Crown across the court's hall, as her grandmother did before her, so that the Firth of Forth will say yes to the court for one more year. And Ronan, who cannot lie, suddenly has something he cannot tell her.

Then the lights go out, and the crown is gone.

To hold the Forth together until the full-moon tide, Wren will have to choose the court over the man she loves. She will have to sit in a seat she never wanted. And, on Christmas Eve, she will have to do the one thing she has never managed: put on her own skin and go into the Hollow's water.

• Contemporary romantasy set in present-day Edinburgh and the Pentlands, told by both of them. • Sensual, not explicit. A hero who cannot lie, a promise he cannot break, and a heroine who builds sea walls. • Book two of five. Start with A Court Beneath the Forth.

For readers who love selkie legends, fated bargains and slow-burn love with teeth.

Then her mother walks into the fish bar downstairs, twenty-two years after she walked into the sea at Portobello and left a seven-year-old on the sand.

The empty seat under the Shore knows three women now: Morvoren, who has held it too long; Mairi, the true queen come home; and Wren. At the bottom of the first spring ebb after the equinox moon, each will sit, and the Forth will ask what she will give. Mairi says she has come to lose. Ronan Seil, who cannot lie, knows how carefully salt folk choose their words.

And six hours after the trying, the biggest surge since 2010 is coming up the Forth.

• Contemporary romantasy set in present-day Leith and Edinburgh, told by both of them. • Sensual, not explicit. A mother and daughter, a hero who cannot lie, and a heroine who fights for a sea wall with a spreadsheet. • Book three of five. Start with A Court Beneath the Forth.

For readers who love selkie legends, fated bargains and slow-burn love with teeth.

Then the Water of Leith starts running backwards at night. The Salt Court's spring under Leith Shore turns sweet, and the oldest of the court begin to cough in their niches. The lord of the Hollow wants Ronan, and he's found two things Ronan wants more than himself.

So Ronan makes a bargain at the meeting of the waters: he'll go under Harlaw and stay there until the Forth itself comes for him.

The Forth doesn't climb hills. But an old law says where the Ebb walks, the Forth walks. Wren has a borrowed flask, the shortest night of the year and twelve miles of road to cover. Every cold line she crosses between the Shore and the Pentlands will cost her a year of her life.

• A contemporary romantasy of selkies, sweet-water lords and very literal promises, set in present-day Edinburgh. • Found family, a council spreadsheet, and a heroine who says excuse me to the drowned. • Sensual, not explicit. Book 4 of 5 in The Salt Court: read books 1 to 3 first.

For readers who love bargains with loopholes, sea magic and a love that pays its own way.

He also has her grandmother, chained in silver under a dam since 1978.

What Wren has: a court of forty, a colleague with a spreadsheet and a man at Scottish Water who owes her two favours, a boss who has booked the Shore for a "flood exercise", and two hundred flasks. There are sixty drowned people in the river who want to go home, and a song she hasn't sung in front of anyone since she was seven.

And Ronan Seil, who cannot lie, has worked out what opens silver. He hasn't told her the price.

The last book of the Salt Court: a war fought with taps and flasks, a bargain made at the top of the tide, and a wedding the day after they win.

• Contemporary romantasy set in present-day Leith and the Pentland Hills. • Sensual, not explicit. Selkies, a river lord, a council engineer, and a love that chooses to grow old. • Book five of five. The series finale.