What the Walls Remember
Calla Brennan has spent her career rebuilding what others abandoned , crumbling facades, forgotten floorplans, the bones of buildings everyone else wrote off. So when she's offered the commission of a lifetime, restoring the legendary Ashby estate on the storm-battered coast, she knows better than to ask why the previous architects all walked away. The Ashby name is whispered like a warning in the harbor town: Roger Ashby's empire, his estranged children, and a tragedy the family sealed shut decades ago. The less said, the safer everyone stays. But walls remember. And as Calla strips away decades of neglect, she finds something wedged behind a mantelpiece , a truth that cracks open the histories of two families, the Brennans and the Ashbys, who have been circling each other for longer than anyone alive will admit. Her sister Lila has been keeping a secret that binds her to Dawson Ashby, the eldest son, whose cold competence hides something Calla recognizes from her own wreckage. The matriarch Beatrice Ashby guards the estate like a vault. Margot Sinclair, the town's relentless chronicler, knows more than she'll ever say. And Edwin Vance, the architect who hired Calla, may not be the ally he appears to be. Each restored beam brings Calla closer to a choice: tear down what the Ashbys have built around their grief, or walk away and let the walls keep their secrets forever.