And, with a shrieking, smoking, mechanical riot, the mermonkey places the hat on its head, rises up on its iridescent fishtail, and begins to type.

ABOOUT THE AUTHOR

THOMAS TAYLOR has always lived near the sea (although 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 always aspiring to be a writer, a childhood of being told, “No, you’re good at drawing – you should be an illustrator instead,” left Thomas nervous to try. But try he did, initially with picture books but soon with novels. It turns out that turning biscuits into books is even more fun when you get to create the story, too.

Thomas 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 jewels and wondering about the stories behind them.

And in case you are curious about the biscuits, the answer is … custard creams.

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents
are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used
fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information
and material of any other kind contained herein are included for
entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for
accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.

First published 2019 by Walker Books Ltd
87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

Text and interior illustrations © 2019 Thomas Taylor
Cover illustrations © 2019 George Ermos

The right of Thomas Taylor to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any
form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior
written permission from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-4063-8993-7 (ePub)