Malamander, Hardcover

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.

Thomas Taylor is an award-winning author-illustrator for children. He illustrated the cover for the very first British edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and has since gone on to write and illustrate several picture books and young novels, most recently the graphic novel Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter by Marcus Sedgwick. He lives on the south coast of England.

Art director by day and author-illustrator by night, Tom Booth is a maker of acclaimed children's books, including Don't Blink!, This Is Christmas, and Who Wins? He made his earliest marks -- sometimes on his parents' antique kitchen table -- growing up in Pennsylvania. Now living in Brooklyn, New York, he is currently at work on several children's books on a table all his own.