Cloak of Silence (Jake Harding Series #1) by Tom Merchant

Cloak of Silence

Idyllic holiday becomes life-or-death quest

Jake likes boarding school, but he just loves going home at the end of term. His parents live on a Greek island where they own an adventure school which provides a warm welcome and awesome challenges to groups of teenagers. Jake’s passion is windsurfing and the blue waters and the warm breezes of the bay are a perfect combination.

His older sister, Zoë, is home for two weeks from university. She is dismayed when her good friend Selena is abruptly sent away to stay with her aunt in Athens. Further stressed by Jake winding her up, Zoë goes for a walk along the beach at dusk. She doesn’t return.

A thorough search that night fails to find her and Jake, feeling guilty and responsible for Zoë’s disappearance, vows to find her.

Under intense pressure to solve the biggest challenge of his life, Jake leaves no stone unturned in the search for his sister. He enlists a group of kids from the course to help him in a desperate race against time to reach a mysterious place called Syntagma. Will the adventure school kids hinder Jake or help him in his quest?

Read an excerpt:

‘You’re keeping her locked up somewhere.’ Jake nearly said ‘at Syntagma’ but stopped himself in time. He would have to explain how he knew and the least said the better.

‘Smart,’ Scorpion commented, taking another drag on the cigarette. ‘What now?’ 

‘I don’t know what now,’ Jake said honestly. 

‘My boss told me to kill your sister,’ Scorpion said conversationally, dropping the cigarette butt onto the floor and stubbing it out viciously with his heel.

The air was suddenly still as Jake looked incredulously at the man in front of him. 

‘You didn’t,’ he said slowly. ‘You couldn’t… could you?’

Available on Amazon

US / UK

About Tom Merchant

Tom grew up in Mossel Bay, a fishing and surfing town on the Garden Route coast of South Africa. He has lived and worked all over the world including Cape Town, London, Liverpool, Kuwait, Dubai and Sydney. He has an abiding love of the sea and has photographed it, surfed in it, sailed dinghies and windsurfed on it, and helped rescue people from it. So it is not surprising that his first novel should be set on an island where the hero is a youngster passionate about windsurfing.

Tom now lives in Sussex with his wife, Suzanne, three Spaniels and their daughter's miniature dachshund.

Author’s website:

http://tommerchant.weebly.com/