During an election cycle in the U.S., our feeds fill with campaign promises, breaking news, alarming headlines, and posts that seem almost designed to make us angry. Before we have time to consider one claim, another takes its place.

How do we decide what to believe? How do we recognize when someone is trying to manipulate us? And how do we avoid passing that manipulation along?

These questions run through Welcome to Seagull Street, making it a particularly timely election-season read.

Ray, the novel’s main character, is a cybersecurity analyst specializing in preventing election fraud. Through her perspective, the story explores the security of our elections, the spread of false information, and the role of foreign threats in efforts to deceive and influence. Her work brings a technical subject into human focus: the choices people make when they encounter information, and the consequences those choices can have.

My experience working on marketing for a cybersecurity firm gave me valuable insight into these issues; insight that helped shape Ray’s work and the questions explored in Welcome to Seagull Street.

Election fraud, cybersecurity threats, and misinformation aren’t interchangeable terms. Distinguishing among them is part of understanding what we’re seeing. A misleading post isn’t proof of election fraud, just as an allegation isn’t evidence. The novel makes room for thinking about those differences and about how confusion itself can become a tool of manipulation.

That’s what makes the story relevant beyond Ray’s profession. Most of us aren’t cybersecurity analysts, but we all make decisions about information. We choose which sources to trust, which claims to question, and which stories to share with friends and family.

An election cycle gives those everyday decisions added weight. A headline that confirms our suspicions can feel convincing before we’ve even opened the article. A familiar person sharing a claim can make it seem credible. Taking a moment to check the source, look for supporting evidence, or read beyond the headline can interrupt that chain.

Welcome to Seagull Street brings these concerns into fiction through a woman whose work puts them at the center of her life. For readers navigating the noise of election season, Ray’s story offers a reason to pause and consider a question that follows us well beyond the page:

What are we helping spread when we click “share”?

Welcome to Seagull Street, Page 67, Ray’s perspective (set in 2023):

Election integrity was an interesting topic because many Americans believed that “election fraud” was widespread and covered up by officials. But in reality, the American election voting system was secure.

After the 2020 election, losers lamented there were unprecedented instances of voter fraud including noncitizen voting, voter impersonation, and double voting. Many states enacted laws that were supposed to limit ways to cheat the system but would effectively reduce turnout and make it harder for Americans to cast their votes via mail and early voting.

Fraud claims were mostly propaganda, and actual evidence of election fraud was never found. In fact, the only thing that was not fake news was that Russia was indeed meddling in the election via social media, email, and text messages. Misinformation or disinformation or fake news—whatever you wanted to call it—was rampant in America and around the world.