From Jess Kidd, the bestselling author of Things in Jars who “is so good it isn’t fair” (Erika Swyler, nationally bestselling author), the first in a cozy mystery series about a former nun who searches for answers in a small seaside town after her pen pal mysteriously disappears.

I believe every one of us at Gulls Nest is concealing some kind of secret.

1954: When her former novice’s dependable letters stop, Nora Breen asks to be released from her vows. Haunted by a line in Frieda’s letter, Nora arrives at Gulls Nest, a charming hotel in Gore-on-Sea in Kent.

A seaside town, a place of fresh air and relaxed constraints, is the perfect place for a new start. Nora hides her identity and pries into the lives of her fellow guests. But when a series of bizarre murders rattles the occupants of Gulls Nest it’s time to ask if a dark past can ever really be left behind.

Published
April 8, 2025
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Author

Jess Kidd

Jess Kidd’s writing dances on the edges of the seen and unseen, where the world of the living collides with the spectral. With a flair for blending the supernatural with vivid, character-driven narratives, Jess invites readers into hauntingly beautiful worlds where the past never quite lets go and the dead aren’t always silent. Born in London and raised in County Mayo, Ireland, Jess’s love for storytelling began early, nurtured by a family steeped in rich folklore and Irish myth. But it was her own fascination with the liminal—those in-between spaces of life and death—that truly shaped her voice as a writer. This enchantment with the ghostly…