North Carolina coastal fiction by Mike Anthony

Choose the kind of coastal story you want

The Bogue Banks Chronicles begins with Across Bogue Sound. Evan Mercer, a boat mechanic and former Coast Guardsman, answers an overdue-boat call as an unfamiliar illness reaches his community. The series follows the questions that come after a search for refuge: how to obtain water and food, whom to trust, and whether an island can sustain its survivors.

The Cedar Shoals thrillers begin with Betrayal. Luke is a small-town police officer and Coast Guard reservist whose cases run through the people he knows. Surge, Signed, and Privilege continue the series through hurricane recovery, an old case, and courthouse retaliation. These are crime thrillers, not installments of the apocalypse series.

For a different kind of coastal adventure, Calico Creek explores barrier islands, the Howling Marauder legend, and a pirate’s secret. The Summer We Found Everything follows a Morehead City discovery involving a cedar box, a pirate ancestor, and a family mystery. These are separate books, not Bogue Banks sequels.

The Crystal Coast, Atlantic Beach, and Emerald Isle

Bogue Banks is the North Carolina barrier island that includes Atlantic Beach and Emerald Isle. Bogue Sound separates the island from the mainland. Those real places provide useful geographical context for readers discovering the Bogue Banks books; this guide does not claim that every town appears in every novel.

If you arrived while looking for fiction associated with Atlantic Beach, Emerald Isle, Morehead City, or Bogue Sound, start with the descriptions below and choose by genre. These are novels and reading guides, not travel guides or accounts of real crimes.

Find the right starting book

Start The Bogue Banks Chronicles with Across Bogue Sound and the Cedar Shoals series with Betrayal. The dedicated series guides list the books in order and distinguish available editions from forthcoming titles. Calico Creek and The Summer We Found Everything can be explored separately.

Mike Anthony is the pen name of Dr. Dondi M. Day, whose background includes law enforcement and Coast Guard service. For his nonfiction, explore Ghosts, Smoke, and the Badge, Stoic in the Storm, and Operational Contract Risk & Claims Management from the main book catalog.

Explore the books

1. Across Bogue Sound

   

   Book One of The Bogue Banks Chronicles, an apocalyptic series by Mike Anthony. In Across Bogue Sound, an overdue fishing boat draws mechanic and former Coast Guardsman Evan Mercer into the first signs of a spreading illness on North Carolina's Crystal Coast.

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2. Betrayal

   Available now

   At 0152, Luke watches an unlit plane drop bundles on a forgotten island airstrip. Then county deputies roll in under blackout to collect them. He tells one person. By sunrise, the Sheriff's Office knows. Days later, a county cash receipt turns up with his signature forged on the line, and Luke has to prove what he saw before someone else finishes writing his story.

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3. Calico Creek: The Legend of the Howling Marauder and the Pirate's Secret

   

   A coastal adventure set along the creeks and barrier islands of North Carolina — the legend of Howling Marauder and the pirate's secret, told for readers who like their maps worn at the edges.

   Read about Calico Creek: The Legend of the Howling Marauder and the Pirate's Secret

4. The Summer We Found Everything

   Available now on Kindle

   A cedar box. A pirate ancestor. A family secret buried for nearly three hundred years. In Morehead City, North Carolina, twelve-year-old Dondi Smythwick finds the box.

   Read about The Summer We Found Everything