Low Water, Bad Blood by Brea Holden

Three weeks of a record drought have pulled the Atchafalaya River back, revealing what it swallowed forty years ago. For archaeologist Maeve Landry, the exposed bones in the cracked mud are a career-defining discovery. But when she finds a modern watch fastened to a historical skeleton, the site turns into a crime scene.

The land belongs to Cruz Devereaux, a salvage diver whose family was destroyed by the very flood that buried these secrets. And the watch belongs to him.

Forced into a tense partnership by state protocols, Maeve and Cruz must navigate a treacherous excavation as the water threatens to return. They are natural enemies, separated by a decades-old parish rivalry and a brutal history of stolen land. But as they dig deeper into the limestone ruins of a sunken chapel, they uncover explosive evidence of a deliberate massacre—one orchestrated by Maeve's own grandfather.

With the river rising and dangerous men closing in to protect the Landry name, Maeve and Cruz must choose between the fierce loyalties they were born into and the undeniable, burning connection forging between them in the mud.