A Meet & Greet and Signing with Children's Fantasy Author Thomas Taylor for MALAMANDER
Join us for a meet & greet and signing with Thomas Taylor for his children's fantasy epic Malamander.
ABOUT THE BOOK
A quirky, creepy fantasy set in Eerie-on-Sea finds a colorful cast of characters in hot pursuit of a sea monster thought to convey a surprising gift.
It’s winter in the town of Eerie-on-Sea, where the mist is thick and the salt spray is rattling the windows of the Grand Nautilus Hotel. Inside, young Herbert Lemon, Lost and Founder for the hotel, has an unexpected visitor. It seems that Violet Parma, a fearless girl around his age, lost her parents at the hotel when she was a baby, and she’s sure that the nervous Herbert is the only person who can help her find them. The trouble is, Violet is being pursued at that moment by a strange hook-handed man. And the town legend of the Malamander — a part-fish, part-human monster whose egg is said to make dreams come true — is rearing its scaly head. As various townspeople, some good-hearted, some nefarious, reveal themselves to be monster hunters on the sly, can Herbert and Violet elude them and discover what happened to Violet’s kin? This lighthearted, fantastical mystery, featuring black-and-white spot illustrations, kicks off a trilogy of fantasies set in the seaside town.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thomas Taylor has always lived near the sea (though that’s not difficult if you live in the British Isles). He comes from a long line of seafarers, but chose a career as an illustrator because that involves less getting wet and more biscuits.
His first professional illustration commission, straight out of art school, was the cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. After this, he concentrated on picture books, some of which won actual awards!
Although he always aspired to be a writer, a childhood of being told “no, you’re good at drawing — you should be an illustrator instead” left him nervous to try. But try he did, initially with picture books, and soon with novels. It turns out turning biscuits into books is even more fun when you get to create the story, too.
Thomas Taylor currently lives on the south coast of England near the historic town of Hastings, which provided some of the inspiration for Eerie-on-Sea. He is a keen beachcomber and has in real life found many of the things Mrs. Fossil finds in this book. He loves nothing more than walking on the beach with his sons, Max and Benjy, and his enormous hound, Alpha, picking up dinosaur bones and sea glass, and wondering about the stories behind them.
And in case you are curious about the biscuits, the answer is . . . custard creams.
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