The Scandia Papers: Gothic Tales Involving Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas Paperback – February 16, 2026

The "Archival Mystery" Beneath the moss-draped cedars of the Kitsap Peninsula, something is waking up. When archivist Amaya Freeman is called to a crumbling Scandia farmhouse, she expects to find dusty records of Norwegian pioneers. Instead, she discovers a hidden cedar chest containing the journals of Dr. Soren Nilsen—a man who vanished in 1947 while tracking a shadow he called Chief Kitsap’s "Red Medicine."From the historic docks of Poulsbo to the rugged Hoh River, Nilsen’s records reveal a terrifying truth: the earth isn’t just soil and stone; it is a sentient ledger. For 160 years, every well dug and every foundation poured has been a breach in a seal that was never meant to be broken. Now, the heartbeat in the clay is accelerating. The debt is being called in. And as the rhythm quickens, the first monument is rising.The "Geological Horror"The people of the Olympic Peninsula think they know their history. They tell stories of the "Iron Man of the Hoh," the great mills of Port Blakeley, and the Viking heritage of Liberty Bay. But they have forgotten the price paid for the land.In The Scandia Papers, Martin E. Francom unearths a secret chronicle of the Northwest. Hidden behind a false wall in an old farmhouse lies a century of evidence of the Red Medicine—a pulsing, resinous force that transforms organic matter into stone and memory into monuments. As Amaya Freeman follows the breadcrumbs of a disappeared historian, she realizes the steady thump-thump beneath her feet is no seismic anomaly. It is a countdown. The settlers fed the hive with their sweat and blood, and now the hive is ready to emerge. The earth remembers. And the earth is hungry.Eleven sites. Eleven breaches. One terrifying heartbeat.When a hidden chest of journals is found in a Scandia kitchen remodel, archivist Amaya Freeman is pulled into a 160-year-old mystery. The papers of Dr. Soren Nilsen tell a story the history books missed—a story of "Red Medicine" flowing through the veins of the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas. It started with a medicine man’s prophecy in 1860. It continued through the industrial greed of the mill towns and the desperate wells of Mormon settlers.Now, the rhythm is accelerating. From 3.0 seconds to 2.7… and counting. As the ground warms and the soil crystallizes, Amaya must decode the journals before the eleven sites wake up at once. In the Pacific Northwest, the past doesn't stay buried. It rises.Back Cover Copy When historical researcher Amaya Freeman discovers a hidden cedar chest in an abandoned Scandia farmhouse, she uncovers the lost journals of Dr. Soren Nilsen—a historian who vanished without a trace in 1947.Inside are eleven stories he should never have documented.From the 1860 smallpox epidemic that decimated the Suquamish people to the catastrophic mill fires of the 1880s, from utopian settlements that disappeared overnight to homesteaders who dug too deep into the red clay, Nilsen tracked something the official histories deliberately omitted: a pattern of debts accrued and collected across 160 years of settlement on the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas.The land remembers what was taken from it. The earth keeps perfect accounts.And beneath the cedar and glacial till, something patient is waiting—counting the rhythm between heartbeats, measuring the distance to the surface, preparing to collect what it's owed.The past never stays buried in the deep clay. Read more