1749. A doomed voyage. A cursed treasure. A woman who will not rest.
When the East Indiaman Amsterdam leaves Texel, her crew believes the greatest dangers lie in storms, shoals, and the long passage ahead. But from the moment an unlisted chest is smuggled aboard, strange things begin to stir in the dark below decks.
Men fall sick without cause. Others die with lungs full of seawater. And Hendrik van der Velde, a seasoned sailor who has never believed in ghosts, begins to see a drowned woman watching him from the shadows ? a woman bound to the gold hidden in the hold.
As the Amsterdam battles a brutal Channel storm and runs aground on the Sussex coast, the survivors discover the curse has followed them ashore. Smugglers vanish. Soldiers fall. And the sea itself seems determined to reclaim what was stolen from a distant shrine.
Some wrecks are accidents. Some are tragedies. And some are warnings.
Autorentext
Author Bio ? Danielle Wynter Batts
Danielle Wynter Batts writes atmospheric Gothic and ghostly fiction set along the windswept coasts of England, where salt marshes, ruined churches, and ancient towns hold stories older than their stones. Blending mystery, romance, and the supernatural, her work lingers in the liminal spaces where history bleeds into folklore and the living brush against the dead.
Living on the rugged south coast, Danielle draws inspiration from the landscapes around her ? the shifting tides, the forgotten cellars beneath medieval streets, and the myths whispered across marshland. Her fiction often delves into the story behind the myth: the human fears, desires, and tragedies that give rise to legends and hauntings.
Whether she is unearthing the darker corners of English history or imagining the ghosts that walk its shorelines, Danielle's writing invites readers into worlds where the veil is thin, the past is restless, and every shadow has a tale to tell.