This darkly comic YA novel, set on a lighthouse in 1983, introduces us to the deeplydysfunctional Captain Church and his crew of social misfits, whose well-ordered universe is turned upside down by the arrival of a marine biologist, who has come to study the local puffin colony. This in turn leads to an encounter with a nasty gang of drug dealers, a surprising undersea discovery and a hamster called Steve.

 

Excerpt

The following extract is from early in the book, when Principal Lighthousekeeper Church discovers a problem with the supplies. He is joined by Jake, a young 19-year-old with a stammer, who is on a temporary work experience placement on the lighthouse. Jake is curious about their new arrival, a biologist, who has come to study the puffin colony and they work out an idea of where she can sleep, involving Steve, Church’s pedantic second-in-command.

 

In the Mess, Church is unpacking the provisions and carefully putting everything in its allocated space. He is talking to himself, thinking aloud. “Where’s the…? Uh-oh.” He frantically rifles through the rest of one box and rips through the others before kicking one across the room, hurting his foot in the process. Jake comes in to see him hopping up and down, in pain and anger.

“W-W-What’s up, Captain?”

“Come here.” Jake does so. “Notice anything?” Jake looks intently. Immediately to the left of the stove is a shelf with a big space on it. Church looks at the big space and then back at Jake’s clueless expression. “Tell you what, I’ll give you a clue. It’s a letter between S and U, one syllable and rhymes with tee.” He waits for a second or two. “TEA, YOU MORON! How’s this lighthouse supposed to function without tea?”

“W-W-Was it on the list?”

“Yes, it w-w-was. Next to money and brain.”

“I-I-I remembered the money.”

“AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Do you know what trying to live a normal life is like without tea?”

“I’m starting to get an idea. We-we-we’ll just have to go c-c-cold turkey.”

“What kind of madman d’you think I am?” Jake opens his mouth to answer and then closes it again quickly.

“Why is she here?”

Church pauses for a second but accepts the non sequitur without question. He is very used to how Jake’s brain works. “She just wants to observe an unusual…colony close up.”

“Birds?”

“Yes, birds. You know, those things with wings that fly around outside. Now, just go and make-up the unexpected guest room.”

“Where’s that then? And who’s gonna come here?”

“If we knew who they were, they wouldn’t be unexpected, would they? Do I have to do all the thinking around here? Use Steve’s room.”

“W-w-won’t that be unpopular? With Steve for a st-st-start.”

“He can share with you.” Jake starts to protest. “No B-B-Buts. Desperate times call for desperate measures. He can use some of my cupboard space.”

“He won’t be h-h-happy.”

“No change there then.” Jake strops out like a surly teenager.

 

 

 

This is not the title of some cheesy romance tale but a description of my life. I am pathologically shy. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I also love reading and writing. This produces some predictable problems and some unpredictable opportunities.

Under another name, I’ve had seven books of quite serious, high-powered non-fiction published and in each case I never had to have direct personal contact with publishers. So what’s different now? Well, on the one hand, the e-book revolution has opened the floodgates for all kinds of writers to throw their wares into the marketplace, meaning the chance for millions of readers to see work which would otherwise never be known. So far, so cool (I think).

However, the sheer volume of the ebook flood, means that the key to success is larger online visibility and many authors have no problem in sharing their every waking detail with the world. And I do mean every detail. Unlike traditional publishing, authors of ebooks have to spend a significant amount of their time trying to increase their profile and this is a huge time-suck, which could often be better used in writing. It’s the rough that comes with the smooth.

At the moment, I don’t tweet or have a blog or a website. I don’t even have a mobile phone. – shock horror. Maybe I’m some form of time traveler from the last century (it certainly feels that way sometimes).
However, what ebooks do offer, which I can completely embrace is the potential to communicate at the click of a button/mouse with anyone anywhere in the world, who has a view/opinion of what I write. That kind of relationship with readers, even if it has to happen through the evils of FB (which I am on, kicking & screaming), is truly radical. If I want to, I can change part of a book, currently in draft form or even published in response to a reader, and that change can appear within 24 hours. This represents a fundamental shift from huge multi-national publishing companies, who traditionally have controlled what we can and cannot read, to individual readers for the first time EVER. It really is revolutionary.

Now, unfortunately, like all revolutions, it’s messy and there are unintended consequences and casualties but what is clear is that the old regimes have started to crumble and that whatever shape the new literary order takes, readers (and authors) are in a much better place than they were.