Some secrets are buried.
Others are hidden in plain sight.

Eighteen-year-old Edwin Yates has spent his life dreaming of adventure beyond the coastal fog of Darbor Key, helping his grandmother run their lighthouse inn and listening to travelers’ tales of far-off lands. When he unearths a sunken relic linked to a centuries-old cold case—the disappearance of a nameless prince seemingly erased from history—Edwin’s life takes an unexpected turn. An invitation arrives from the prestigious Palgrave Academy of Adventuring, a university that turns dreamers into explorers and cartographers into legends, applied for in secret by his grandmother.

Thrust into a world of rivalries and relics, Edwin finds an unexpected challenge in Kennedy Campbell, the youngest daughter of a powerful engineering dynasty. Brilliant, sharp-tongued, and fiercely competitive, Kennedy is determined to outpace him at every turn. But when they discover that the Nameless Prince’s secret might be tied to their own secrets, the two rivals must join forces—unwillingly at first—to unravel a mystery that could reshape the world.

Guided by cryptic clues, an ancient key with a mysterious history, and a sailor’s song about homes lost to sea, Edwin and Kennedy must outwit outlaws, evade a sinister order with secrets of their own, and decide which truths are worth uncovering—and which secrets are best left buried.

The Cartographer’s Secret is a sweeping YA adventure of sunken libraries, buried truths, and the uncharted maps that lead us home.