Fear of the Deep by Julie Hiner

Bailey, a lifeguard with a heavy metal heart and a Jack Daniel’s addiction, has long avoided the deep sea since a haunting accident. San Diego’s sunny shores provide a façade of normalcy, where her nights are drowned in music and whiskey, and her days are spent keeping a safe distance from the ocean’s grasp.

But the sea has a way of claiming what it wants. The discovery of a woman’s body, marked by peculiar and familiar bite marks, washes up on her beach, forcing Bailey to confront the fears she’s been running from. Deep beneath the waves, something sinister lurks, a nightmare born from genetic engineering gone awry. As Bailey delves deeper into the mystery, she finds herself entangled in a web of horror and science fiction, where sea creatures of the darkest depths become terrifyingly real.

With each tide, the line between reality and nightmare blurs, pulling Bailey into a psychological maelstrom. Her journey is not just a battle against the horrors emerging from the deep but a fight to overcome the demons within herself.