Salt in the Trees: Coastal Tales of Dread is a debut collection of four interconnected short horror stories rooted in the haunted landscapes of Florida's Gulf Coast. Set among drowned forests, forgotten shorelines, and humid backroads, the collection explores the quiet terror that emerges when history, environment, and human vulnerability collide.
Blending Southern Gothic atmosphere with contemporary psychological horror, these stories unfold in liminal spaces-places where waterlines creep higher each year, memory lingers in the soil, and the boundary between the familiar and the uncanny begins to erode. Rather than relying on spectacle or shock, Salt in the Trees favors slow-building dread, emotional unease, and the unsettling realization that something has been watching long before the characters arrive.
The collection draws on coastal folklore, environmental anxiety, and the intimate knowledge of fear that comes from years of being in the same place. Characters confront isolation, obsession, grief, and the body's fragility, often discovering that the most frightening forces are not entirely external. The land itself becomes an active presence-patient, observant, and unwilling to forget.
Written with a restrained, literary voice, Salt in the Trees will appeal to readers of atmospheric horror, Southern Gothic fiction, and short-form dark literature. It is particularly suited for audiences drawn to mood-driven storytelling, regional horror, and narratives that privilege tension and ambiguity over explanation.
This collection marks the author's debut and includes a bonus introductory section to a forthcoming longer work, expanding the thematic world of the book while inviting readers deeper into its coastal mythology.
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