Book Spotlight with Author Simon Rudd

Every adversary she's faced was caught off guard. This one came ready. In the Cornish harbour town of Blackwater Quay, Elowen Finch reads what other people can't. Lay a hand on an old letter and the feeling bleeds through — grief, love, the quiet shape of a lie. It's the gift she inherited along with the bookshop, the journals, and a cat named Atlas who notices trouble before she does. So when a poised, soft-spoken stranger named Sylvie Carver makes a Tuesday appointment with a box of legitimate documents and a set of questions that are far too precise, Elowen knows she's looking at something new. A hire car parked on Harbour Street each morning. Three months of research across three archives. A grief that's genuine — and a grievance aimed straight at the Finch family's past.