The Riptide

A dazzling, puzzle-box mystery of secrets, power and hidden truths

1804, Isle of Ray, Essex. Lysander Rose has spent his life searching for the truth about his mother, abducted when he was just a baby.

When the men who took her return for him, Lysander is forced to flee – leaving behind everything he knows. But in his escape, he uncovers a clue that draws him into the orbit of a secretive organisation known only as the Circle.

As Lysander follows the trail from the Essex coast to the shadowed streets of Edinburgh, he finds himself entangled in a world of murder, blackmail and political intrigue. At its centre: an exiled king, and a conspiracy that could shape the fate of nations.

And stranger still, every step of his journey seems to have already been written – played out in the pages of a lurid penny-blood chapbook.

But if the story has already been told, can Lysander change how it ends?