River Enchanted

Jack Tamerlaine has spent a decade away from Cadence, the isle he grew up on, devoting himself to music at a university on the mainland. That distance ends when girls begin vanishing from the island and he is called home to help bring them back.

On Cadence, magic seeps into ordinary life. Even gossip travels on the wind. A plaid shawl can offer protection as firm as armor, while a single small nick from a blade can leave a person gripped by a fear that never lets go. Overseeing it all are capricious spirits that command fire, water, earth, and air, and they seem to take delight in the lives of the people who make their home on the land.

Adaira, the heiress of the east, has been Jack's rival since childhood. She believes the spirits respond only to a bard's music, and she is counting on Jack to call them forth with song and coax them into returning the missing girls. Forced to cooperate, the two discover they work far better as partners than as opponents, and their alliance slowly grows into something deeper. Yet each song reveals that the trouble with the spirits runs darker than anyone expected, and an older secret buried beneath Cadence stirs to the surface, putting everything they care about at risk.