This is a moodboard for book 3. It has a title, but as my titles all seem to get changed several times, I'm going to wait until the cover has been designed before I start sharing it!
I am half Welsh, on my father’s side, and I spent many school holidays as a child, visiting family in South Wales and exploring the coast. I nearly drowned on Ogmore beach when I was about five years old, and now, into my third book, I wonder if this event has had a bigger influence in my life than I realised.
My Welsh grandparents died when I was a teenager, putting an end to those long car journeys, and my father died in 2012, severing another connection to the area. It is only recently that I have begun to reacquaint myself with this beautiful country through an old schoolfriend who invited me to join her on the isle of Anglesey when she was holidaying there with her family. I cannot resist an island. And when I discovered there was another, much smaller, island a thirty-minute drive from where we were staying, I knew I had to visit it.
Ynys Llanddwyn, (Llanddwyn Island, in English), is a tidal island, measuring less than half a square mile, off the coast of Newborough National Nature Reserve. It can only be accessed at certain times of the day on foot — it becomes cut off at high tide — and this fact charmed me when I read about it. When I visited, I knew I wanted to set a book on an island that became impossible to reach during certain times of the day, so it formed the inspiration for Little Auger. Little Auger grew into a much larger, rockier, more sinister place, and bears little resemblance to my original muse. If you do happen to visit Llanddwyn, though, look at the rocks that rise from the sand as you approach. There is something distinctly reptilian about them. And the island would soon lose its charm if you became cut off by the tide and the wind started to blow.
Between the Waves is dedicated to my father, who was a great reader, and who died before I became a writer. He would have been delighted.
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