After tragedy sidelined her promising art career Justine finally gathers the courage to change her troubled life. She sets out from Boston––leaving her home and twin sister behind––for the isolated refuge of a Victorian mansion on the New England coast.

But in search of peace she discovers a mystery instead: an antique bottle with a message inside. It appears to have come from a famous local sailing ship––a vessel lost to a hurricane almost two centuries earlier––and believing it a hoax, Justine decides to play along. She pens a reply to the doomed sailors, alerting them to their fate, and returns the bottle to the ocean––only to have it return containing a note thanking her for the warning. 

The bottle is just the latest in a series of strange and unsettling events, leaving her paranoid and certain she’s being watched, but with the storm of the season closing in Justine is trapped at the house. At the height of the tempest, with power out along the coast, she rescues a man from drowning in the bay and helps him to safety. He’s oddly dressed, claiming to be the victim of a shipwreck, and says that he and his shipmates were spared certain disaster because they found her message…in the year 1849.

Wary, but trapped with him by the ferocity of the weather, Justine befriends the stranger, and is surprised to find a sense of home and belonging that she has only ever dreamed of. But nothing here is as it seems: not the house or its surroundings; not even the playful sheepdog that has kept her company since her arrival––and as the date to vacate the mansion draws near the stranger’s true motives are finally revealed

With its gothic setting WHAT THE SEA RETURNS is an upmarket blend of suspense and love story with historical and time travel elements, and should appeal to fans of Kate Morton, Carol Goodman, and Diana Gabaldon.