Bones of the Deep — An Ocean Folk-Horror Thriller

The story

A tall ship, seven days of open Pacific, and an ancient civilisation rising to reclaim its stolen dead.

Seven days of open Pacific aboard a beautiful old tall ship: for the paying passengers of the Southern Crosswind, the crossing from Fiji to Vanuatu is the escape of a lifetime.

But marine scientist Eve Calder has brought something aboard in a sealed crate: the skeleton of a saint that was never human, taken from a shrine deep beneath the waves on the orders of a billionaire collector.

First come the sharks, swimming in formation. Then three deliberate knocks on the hull in the night, asking to be let in.

The children of the shark god Dakuwaqa want their holy woman back, and an ancient debt is coming due that can only be paid in blood.

“She said the deep has a long memory. And that it will rise to take—”From Bones of the Deep · chapter 6

Into the Drowning Deep meets The Terror, on a tall ship in the South Pacific.

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Reader reviews

“If you want well developed characters, a gripping story, and terrifying creatures, this book is a must read.”Niccole, Goodreads review

“A sleek, salt‑bitten thriller that reads like a storm rolling in from the black horizon”Debbie, Goodreads review

“A thriller full of atmosphere and tension. I couldn't stop turning the pages ... The characters are nuanced and beautifully done”Jayne, Goodreads review

The research behind the fiction

Bones of the Deep is the world of the Southern Crosswind: a sixty-year-old tall ship crossing the South Pacific from Fiji to Vanuatu, drawn from the real voyage that changed Jo's life in 1999. Its mythology is real too: Dakuwaqa, the shark god of Fiji, and the boundary-beings of sea legend from sirens to selkies.

True story

The voyage behind the book

In 1999, burned out at 24, Jo crossed this exact stretch of the Pacific by tall ship. It ended her corporate life and began this one.

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Mythology

Dakuwaqa, the shark god

The real Fijian deity who patrols the reef passages: a fierce shapeshifter, appeased with offerings but never controlled.

Legend

The merfolk of myth were never gentle

Sirens, selkies, rusalki: across world myth, the beings at the sea's boundary are powerful, dangerous, and owed respect.

Science

The last wilderness

We have mapped less of the deep ocean than the surface of the moon. The book's creatures live in that blank space.

Ethics

Whose bones are they?

Museum shelves hold remains taken without consent. From Jo's MA in Death, Religion and Culture: what happens when the culture wants its bones back?

The ship

The Soren Larsen

The real tall ship behind the Southern Crosswind, still sailing out of Sydney Harbour today.

Questions

Before you begin

Is Bones of the Deep a standalone?

Yes. It is a complete story with a closed ending and no sequel hook.

How dark is it?

Dark for J.F. Penn's range: a horror-leaning thriller where the violence has real consequences. The creatures are given dignity and grief, and the ending lands on atonement and awe rather than nihilism.

Are the creatures supernatural?

No. They are an evolved, sentient ocean civilisation with language, religion and grief of their own: plausible-monster horror in the tradition of Michael Crichton, run on folk-horror logic.

Is it connected to J.F. Penn's other books?

No shared characters, but it belongs with her other stories of the sacred dead: Catacomb beneath Edinburgh, Blood Vintage in the English vines, and her ocean short stories including Seahenge and The Dark Queen.