Riverboat Requiem

Others just want to sing. Former ER physician Lela Lockwood has traded the trauma ward for a different kind of triage: she's the latest in a long line of Keepers, tasked with guarding Lexington's magical-and dangerous-artifacts. After a grueling retrieval trip, all she wants is a hot shower, some of her shape-shifter housemate's famous baking, and to relax with her golden dog, Hazel. But in a river town built on centuries of secrets, rest is a luxury.When a mesmerizing blonde named Vespa takes the stage at the local pub's open mic night, the entire town falls under an eerie, rhythmic trance. Soon after, a historically cursed item-the Siren's Locket-is stolen from the museum, and Lexington descends into supernatural chaos. Neighbors wage war over garden gnomes, teenagers turn feral, and long-buried resentments boil to the surface. Vespa isn't just a singer; she's an ancient river siren using the locket to harvest the town's darkest friction to feed the hungry void of the Missouri River.To stop the psychic hemorrhaging, Lela must dig into her family's darkest ledgers and master a volatile green-gold earth magic she barely understands. But her biggest obstacle might be Lexington's fiercely logical Police Chief, Murray. Keeping him in the dark was meant to protect him, but as Vespa's symphony of spite threatens to hollow out the man Lela loves, the truth becomes her only weapon.Armed with a bone-whistle, salt circles, and a shotgun-wielding skeptic, Lela must face down a three-hundred-year-old hunger in the flooded ruins of a sunken steamboat. She must break the melody before her town forgets how to be human-even if the cure is worse than the disease.