The Rising Tide

In this “fiendishly clever novel,” a woman’s husband vanishes in a historic storm — and new troubles wash up in its wake (Sunday Times)

In a small fishing village on the Devon coast, Lucy Locke has built a life that anyone would envy. She and her husband, Daniel, own successful businesses and live with their two children in a picturesque home overlooking the harbor. But everything changes one morning when, following a monumental storm, the family yacht is found empty — and Lucy’s husband is nowhere in sight.

As the search for Daniel mounts, so does Lucy’s sense of dread, raised to a fever pitch when another, more terrifying revelation pushes her storybook life to the brink of total destruction. Lucy is reluctantly forced to face a harsh truth: the sea gives life, and just as quickly takes it away. And when the detective on the case uncovers suspicious details that Lucy had hoped would stay buried, she’ll have to confront the nightmarish possibility that she created her own undoing.

Beautifully rendered with evocative, atmospheric prose, The Rising Tide is at once a pulse-pounding, inescapably suspenseful thriller and a poignant tale of the power of the natural world. Its characters and settings are sure to stay with readers long after the final page—and after their heart rates finally return to normal.

Beautifully written, incredibly evocative with a real sense of place and of the sea. Heart-stoppingly tense.”
―Catherine Cooper, bestselling author of The Chalet

Absorbing and deftly written . . . Lloyd is a born storyteller.”
―The Herald

Lloyd is terrific on atmosphere . . . and he excels at taking readers to very dark places.”
―Metro

Surprising twists”
―Publishers Weekly

Lloyd pulls out all the stops”
―Kirkus

Sam Lloyd grew up in Hampshire, where he learned his love of storytelling. These days he lives in Surrey with his wife, three young sons and a dog that likes to howl. His debut thriller, The Memory Wood, was published to huge critical acclaim in 2020. The Rising Tide is his second novel.