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The Coral Never Forgets

Bones in the Coral

A 1950s Palm Beach Mystery Series

Palm Beach, October 1954. Nora Calloway is the third generation of her family to care for the island's great estates, and she knows every locked door and quiet hallway. Some of those houses have been keeping secrets far longer than anyone living can remember.

The books follow the island from the autumn of 1954 into the hot, empty summer of 1955. Each novel stands fully on its own, while Nora's story carries from one book to the next.

5 Books4 Available NowPalm Beach, 1954 to 1955
Start with Book OneSee the Reading Order
What the Silence Kept coverSecret Vias of Paradise coverThe House Always Wins coverPast the Witch's Wall coverThe Last Season cover

The Books in Order

Every book stands on its own, but reading them in order lets the larger story unfold.

IBOOK ONE
What the Silence Kept, Bones in the Coral Book One, by Howard Mark Hines

What the Silence Kept

Palm Beach's grand estates depend on people willing to see everything and say nothing, and third-generation caretaker Nora Calloway has spent her life being exactly that. But when she opens the Ashworth estate for the season and finds the family's long-sealed morning room standing open, untouched in twenty-eight years, she discovers a name carved into the underside of a shelf where no one was meant to find it, Constance Beaumont, a name belonging to no family on the island, no grave in its cemeteries, and no story anyone has ever told her.

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IIBOOK TWO
Secret Vias of Paradise, Bones in the Coral Book Two, by Howard Mark Hines

Secret Vias of Paradise

Palm Beach, November 1954. The Season is about to begin, and the great houses along the ocean are waking up one by one. Nora Calloway is the caretaker who opens them. She is the third generation of her family to hold the keys, and since October she has been the most unwelcome woman on the island. Her family's ledger helped her bring an old crime into the daylight, and the families who paid for her silence have not forgiven her for it.

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IIIBOOK THREE
The House Always Wins, Bones in the Coral Book Three, by Howard Mark Hines

The House Always Wins

Palm Beach, January 1955. The Season is at its height, and for the first time in years every great house on the ocean is lit and full. The lake is crowded with yachts, the parties run until dawn and the winter people have learned to look straight through the caretaker who opens their doors. Nora Calloway still keeps their keys. Every night she still hears the pump humming somewhere beneath her cottage floor.

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IVBOOK FOUR
Past the Witch's Wall, Bones in the Coral Book Four, by Howard Mark Hines

Past the Witch's Wall

Palm Beach, summer 1955. The Season is over. The trains have taken the winter people north, the great houses sit behind their hurricane shutters and the island lies hot, still and nearly empty. Caretaker Nora Calloway has it almost to herself. The man who raised her no longer knows her most mornings, and at night the pump still hums somewhere beneath her cottage floor.

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VBOOK FIVE
The Last Season, Bones in the Coral Book Five, by Howard Mark Hines

The Last Season

Palm Beach, fall 1955. The shutters are coming down along the ocean, and the Season is about to return to the island. On the night of her twenty-ninth birthday, caretaker Nora Calloway rides out to the Coral Cut and finds a green marble on the ledge behind the small barred window. It is still warm, and Nora knows a child left it there.

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