A real seventeenth-century shipwreck. A silk gown preserved as if folded yesterday. A mystery historians still can't solve.

When the Palmwood Wreck gave up its treasures off the Dutch coast, no one could explain why these particular objects lay together on one unnamed ship.

The Silk and the Sea is one writer’s answer to the mystery of the Palmwood Wreck: a novel of historical detective work, researched and reimagined. It traces the lost cargo from its distant origins to the cold waters of the Wadden Sea.