The Beach Hut

Legend Press Ltd, The Old Fire Station,

140 Tabernacle Street, London, EC2A 4SD

[email protected] | www.legendpress.co.uk

Contents © Cassandra Parkin 2015

The right of the above author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.

Print ISBN 978-1-9102665-0-2

Ebook ISBN 978-1-9102665-1-9

Set in Times. Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays Ltd.

Cover design by Gudrun Jobst www.yotedesign.com

All characters, other than those clearly in the public domain, and place names, other than those well-established such as towns and cities, are fictitious and any resemblance is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Cassandra Parkin grew up in Hull, and now lives in East Yorkshire. Her debut novel The Summer We All Ran Away was published by Legend Press in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Amazon Rising Star Award. Her short story collection, New World Fairy Tales (Salt Publishing, 2011) was the winner of the 2011 Scott Prize for Short Stories. Cassandra’s work has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies.

Visit Cassandra at
cassandraparkin.wordpress.com
or follow her @cassandrajaneuk

Acknowledgements

If you know the coast of North Cornwall at all, you’ll recognise the place that inspired this book as Perranporth Beach, which has had my heart for as long as I can remember. As writers tend to do, I’ve made small changes to suit the purposes of the story, and filled it with fictional characters.

No-one in the book is real; but the beach really is that beautiful, and the tide really does come in that fast, and (if you were careless enough to get caught out) the caves really would be that dangerous. Never turn your back on the ocean.

Thank you to my wonderful editor Lauren Parsons and the rest of the team at Legend for all the amazing things you do for writers and readers.

Thank you to my brother Ian for being the most awesome little brother on the planet (and for being absolutely nothing like Finn), and to all of my amazing family down in the West Country. May Third Cubicle Jesus watch over us always.

Special thanks to my children Becky and Ben, for proudly taking my books in to Show and Tell (despite having to tell all your friends “You can’t read this because it’s got swearing in it”) and for never once complaining when I huddle on the sofa, wild-haired and in my pyjamas, muttering over my keyboard like a witch.