The Strandling by James Brogden, a Battle of British Folklore

The Strandling by James Brogden, a Battle of British Folklore

The idea for The Strandling started out as no more sophisticated than to write a good old-fashioned creature-feature pitting two monsters out of British folk lore against each other in a big bitey mash-up. I’ve also had a long-standing fascination with dying seaside towns and the legends of old Doggerland, so it seemed natural to combine the two.

The Strandling is about a young woman called Megan living in a seaside village called Salwick which, due to coastal erosion, is collapsing inch by inch into the North Sea. She is trapped between her desire to leave and her duty to her sick father, and the only things keeping her sane are her dog Kelpy and her friend Lou, an older woman who owns a beach cafe and has a sardonic disregard for the petty gossip of village life. One day a huge storm washes up from the depths of drowned Doggerland a shapeshifting horror that starts to kill the villagers, but its presence awakens other occult forces, and Megan quickly learns that nothing is what she thought it was: not her father, not Lou, not herself, and especially not Kelpy.

The Strandling was written in the shadow of the deaths of my father-and-mother-in-law and then the Covid19 pandemic, which changed everything – both about and around the book. It quickly became about the terror, magic, and inevitability of change, about love and grief, about friendship, and about self-reliance. It’s the first book that I’ve properly self-published, and I hope that people like it.

Here is the back cover text:

The Strandling by James Brogden

Nineteen-tear old Megan Howatt lives in a house on the edge of a crumbling sea cliff, waiting for her life to fall into the North Sea. Her mother is dead, and her father has lost his mind, obsessively hoarding the junk that he salvages from the shoreline. Her only friends are Lou, the eccentric owner of a beach-side cafe, and Kelpy, the large black dog that she rescued from the sea as a puppy. Desperate to escape, but unwilling to abandon her father, she scratches a living working at the Dry Dog Inn in the nearby village of Salwick.

A violent storm hits the village, and the killings begin. A flock of sheep is torn apart, and suspicious eyes turn towards Kelpy. The owner of a local antiques shop goes missing. Something prowls the village streets at night – something that smells of rot and endless hunger. Megan finds herself drawn to the story of Mad Annie, a local woman accused of witchcraft who died on the island of Nine Mothers. With Lou’s help, Megan must reckon with the occult powers awakening in her, face the ghosts of her childhood and save her home from a shape-shifting horror of the ancient world.

Ginger Nuts of Horror is a huge fan of James’ writing. Check out some of our reviews of his earlier work below. Sadly, we lost most of our reviews when the website was hacked last year. But two survived

BONE HARVEST BY ​JAMES BROGDEN

About James Brogden

James Brogden is a British writer of horror and dark fantasy. A part-time Australian who grew up in Tasmania and the Cumbrian Borders, he has since escaped to suburbia and now lives with his wife and two daughters in the Midlands of the UK, where he teaches English. When not writing or teaching he can usually be found up a hill, poking around stone circles and burial mounds. He also owns more lego than is strictly necessary.

His short stories have appeared in various anthologies and periodicals ranging from The Big Issue to the BFS Award-Winning Alchemy Press. His most recent novel, ‘The Hollow Tree’ was published by Titan Books in March 2018, and ‘The Plague Stones’ was published in 2019. Blogging occurs infrequently at jamesbrogden.blogspot.co.uk, and tweeting at @skippybe.