Well plotted, disturbing, and gripping. I liked the storytelling and the world building.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Sugar Sands by Deb Davies is set on Michigan's sunset coast and is quite a page-turner. When Arnie, a retired police officer, decides to skip out on knee surgery, his wife Laurel decides a relaxing trip to Lake Michigan's Sunset Coast might do him good. Joining them are their teenage son, Sawyer, and their friends Claire and Charles. There’s an eerie bioluminescent phenomenon in the lake, giving everyone the creeps. Sawyer has a knack for joking about his family’s disasters whenever they hang out with friends, but this time, it's no joke as trouble brews when his girlfriend takes a job as the live-in scribe for Maeve, an elderly and dying author who speaks with dead children’s ghosts. It all becomes a race against time to find Sawyer’s girlfriend. ‘Sugar Sands’ a gripping, twisting, convoluted suspense/thriller that will keep you interested and entertained from start to finish.