Doctor Who_ Rip Tide - Louise Cooper [67]
Steve looked round then, and saw her. For a moment his expression was tight, sad — but then, gradually, the muscles relaxed and the look changed to something else. The ghost of a smile appeared on his lips, and Nina felt a warm emotion rise and flower.
Smiling back, she walked through the small wave edges to join him.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This story, of course, is fiction, which brings me to a point that must be stressed. In the final chapters my characters have broken nearly every safety and procedure rule that the Royal National Lifeboat Institution has – for extremely good reasons – set in place. In a work of imagination, and for the sake of dramatic tension, this is just about allowable; in the real world, though, the skilled and courageous volunteers who crew the lifeboats would react to Nina's trickery in a very different way. So I offer thanks to Cas for sternly (but nicely) correcting me when I got things wrong, and to Guy for his invaluable help with the diving details – and acknowledgements and apologies to our local lifeboat crew for the liberties I've taken with a service that they know far better than I can ever hope to do. If I've made any huge howlers, they have my full permission to dunk me in the sea next time I meet them on the beach! (Though preferably on a warm, sunny day ... please?)
If anyone would like to make a donation to the RNLI, the address to write to is:
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution
West Quay Road
Poole
Dorset BH 15 1 HZ
(Registered Charity Number 209603)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
For as long as I can remember, my two greatest dreams were to be a teller of
stories, and to live in Cornwall. I achieved the first of those ambitions in 1973, at the age of 20, when my first fantasy novel, The Book of Paradox, was published in the USA and Britain. I've since published more than fifty novels, and the ideas are still flowing as strongly as ever. Then in 1998, I finally fulfilled my second dream, when I moved with my artist partner, Cas Sandall, to the north Cornish coast.
But to basics: I was born in Hertfordshire on 29th May 1952, and am a typical scatterbrained Gemini. I spent most of my school years writing stories when I should have been concentrating on lessons, and by the time I left school I had completed two embarrassingly bad novels. I worked, firstly, as a secretary (again, writing stories when I should have been typing letters) and later, after moving to London, as a paperback blurb-writer, which was much more my sort of thing. In 1977, with 6 novels published (if not exactly best-sellers!) I went freelance, and supplemented my writing income with copy-editing and proofreading.
My 'big break' came in 1984, when my then agent persuaded me to expand and re-write my second book, Lord of No Time, into a trilogy – The Time Master. To my delight, and with the boost of three stunning Robert Gould covers, Time Master was a great success on both sides of the Atlantic, and in the next 10 years I wrote and published 15 more fantasy novels, including the Indigo series and a "prequel" and sequel to Time Master. I also started to write children's and Young Adult novels, and it astonishes me to look back and realise that I've completed 20-odd books in this field, as well as another four adult fantasy novels. Makes
me wonder how I ever found time to eat and sleep!
I do make time for other things now, though. Cas and I met in 1994, and soon agreed that, much as we loved London, it was no longer the place for us. We moved to Worcestershire, where I have family, but we hankered after the sea. I suspect we've both got a good helping of salt water in our veins as well as blood – Cas used to be a senior Merchant Navy officer, and me; well, I'm at my best and happiest at the coast. So why resist the inevitable? We did what we had both always wanted