child of the marsh god by sean patrick sayers comming 2027

 Jake Cullen is twelve, and most days he feels smaller than that. At school he is the boy pushed aside, the one marked early as an easy target. He walks the halls trying not to be noticed, hoping to get home without another bruise.

On the last day of seventh grade, the world closes in on him again. A punch on the bus. The sort that shakes something loose inside a boy. Jake runs from it, wanting only a way out, but the day carries him farther than he ever meant to go. A mistake on the water. A small boat drifting off course. And then the marsh rising around him, an island set deep in the Chesapeake, thick with trees and ghosts.

Stranded with no way back, Jake faces the things he has always feared: hunger, dark nights, and the long hours when no one is coming to help. The wild dogs cross the shallows at low tide, moving in a loose, patient pack. They watch him from the waterline. They learn him the way the marsh learns him.

Jake shelters in an old blue sailboat left half-buried in the sand. He gets by on whatever he can find. Days stretch into weeks. The mainland fades, slipping into a place that feels distant and unimportant.

Alone on that island, Jake comes to understand himself in ways he never had the chance to before. The marsh is old. It answers to nothing human. It shapes whatever manages to endure.

Jake Cullen is no exception.

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