I’ve always lived near the sea, and seaside towns have always featured in my life, but it was only a few years ago that I finally came to live in one. Being a hundred paces from the beach, all year round, allowed me to discover the strangeness of coastal life for myself. Because there’s a secret life to seaside towns that you don’t discover if you only go there in the summer and sit in the sun — a secret life of weird weather and mysterious tides that is packed with potential for adventure.

Beach combing is a real joy, and the best season for that is winter, when storms and wild seas stir up things that have lain buried and forgotten beneath the sand, and throw them onto the beach for a brief moment before burying them again. If you’re lucky, and patient, you can find these things before that happens. Where I live, on England’s south coast, I find sea glass gems, strange pieces of driftwood, even the bones of prehistoric creatures. And while it’s endlessly fascinating to discover what those things are in reality, it’s also interesting to wonder what they might be in a story.

Malamander is in many ways the culmination of an ongoing project to turn beachcoming into books. It’s a project I didn’t even know I was pursuing until I was joined on my lonely foreshore walks by a boy called Herbert Lemon, Lost-and-Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel, and his curious friend Violet Parma. And with them came Lady Kraken, Mrs Fossil, Dr Thalassi, and all the quirky residents of a mysterious town called Eerie-on-Sea. And behind us all, lurking in the mists, keeping pace with us in the shallows just beyond view, we were followed by a creature out of legend – the unctuous and creeping malamander itself.

Malamander will be published by Walker on the 2ndof May, 2019, and is the start of a series. I recommend Hive.co.uk, where you can order the book online but support your local independent bookseller at the same time. Obviously, if you have an indy bookshop near you, then go there first (lucky you!).  Malamander is also Waterstones Book of the Month for May, 2019. And if you’d like to know more, check out the website — with a book trailer and a brilliant interactive map — at www.eerie-on-sea.com.

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