Mermaids. Murder. Mayhem.

Realm Award Finalist for Best Debut, 2018
Parable Award Finalist, 2018
Alliance Award Semi-Finalist, 2018


A red tide is rising.

Seventeen-year-old Jade is recently engaged to a handsome soldier and about to choose her own career. But she didn't expect to witness a murder.

When her fiancé kills a naiad, plunging the underwater city of Thessalonike into uproar, tensions surge between the mer and the naiads. Jade learns too late that the choices she makes ripple further than she'd ever imagined. And as she fights against the tide of anger in a city that lives for scandal, she discovers danger lurking in every canal, imperiling her family and shattering the ocean's fragile peace.

Can the city's divisions be mended before the upwelling of hate rips apart everything Jade loves?

Breakwater is the first novel in a spine-tingling series of YA mermaid fantasy books. If you like enigmatic mystery, stirring romance, and harrowing intrigue, you'll love Catherine Jones Payne's riveting underwater world.

Plunge into a page-turning adventure perfect for fans of Carrie Anne Noble, Leigh Bardugo, Jennifer Donnelly, and Kiera Cass.