After that I worked mostly on picture books, edging further and further into writing, until I realized that what I really wanted to do was write fiction. At the time though, the book and the author were entirely unknown, so I got the job, straight out of art school. I started out as an illustrator, and my first ever commissioned project was the cover art for a book called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which, er, some of your readers may have heard of. I’m an author and illustrator of children’s books, based in the UK. John E.UK edition of Harry Potter, with Thomas’s art.Mike Stamm on Lin Carter’s Forgotten Anthologies: Kingdoms of Sorcery and Realms of Wizardry.HOME Search Search for: Search Mad Shadows Darker than Weird Hither Came Conan Get Back Issues of Black Gate Recent Comments The series in published by Walker Books in the US. Gargantis (352 pages, $7.99 paperback/$16.99 digital, April 6, 2021) - cover by George Ermos, illustrations by Tom Booth Malamander (290 pages, $7.99 paperback/$0.99 digital, May 2, 2019) - cover by George Ermos, illustrations by Tom Booth The sequel, Gargantis, was published in hardcover last year, and will be released in paperback in April. 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. 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.

The trouble is, Violet is being pursued at that moment by a strange hook-handed man. 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. Inside, young Herbert Lemon, Lost and Founder for the hotel, has an unexpected visitor.

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.

Especially not when darkness falls and the wind howls around Maw Rocks and the wreck of the battleship Leviathan, where even now some swear they have seen the unctuous Malamander creep… Nobody visits Eerie-on-Sea in the winter. I was sold less than halfway though the book description on the back. Last summer, while browsing the shelves at Barnes in Noble, I came across Malamander, the opening novel in a new middle-grade fantasy series by Thomas Taylor titled Legends of Eerie-on-sea. Sometimes it seems all my best book purchases are impulse buys.

Malamander and Gargantis by Thomas Taylor (Walker Books, 2019-21).

Thomas taylor malamander series