The 4^th book in the Glowstone Adventure series finds 12-year-old heroine Katie tackling one of the gravest crises facing our planet – ocean plastic pollution. This could be her biggest challenge yet, but with her trusty magic glowstone can she achieve the unthinkable and save marine life from this growing peril?

The story begins with Katie on holiday in Devon, England, exploring rock pools on the beach. She comes across a rock pool full of litter, plastic bottles, straws and bags and a poor crab tangled up in it all. She is at this point transported to her latest adventure, on Henderson Island in the South Pacific where over 40 million pieces of washed up plastic was recently discovered (by Dr Lavers herself, providing a foreword to the book). Here she meets Harry the green turtle and Basil, a crown-of-thorns starfish, both with terrible tummy-ache…caused by ingesting this plastic garbage. Katie aims to not only cure their tummy-ache, but also to restore the beautiful paradise island beach to its former glory. She does this with getting the leaders of the world to sweep the beaches in hilarious scenes, with Harry and Basil and other magical wildlife looking on, loving what they are seeing!

The book is aimed at 5-9 year olds, combining an important environmental message with classic fun-packed adventure, pure magic from the glowstone and lots of beautiful innocent creatures that will appeal to all children. Katie is also a determined and environmentally aware girl who will do all in her power to help all animals in difficulty, anywhere in the world.

The inspiration for this book came from seeing this image from Henderson Island, which is part of the Pitcairn Islands in the middle of the Pacific. I feel passionately about the damage plastic is doing to our oceans and figured why not make it the focus for Katie’s next adventure?

I managed, from this image, to pen the outline of the story and approach the marine researcher Dr Jennifer Lavers and see if she would be interested in writing a foreword – and she agreed! I was also aware that a BBC TV personality, Julia Bradbury, was particularly focused on this issue and was patron of the UK charity Keep Britain Tidy. I asked her too, via speculative DM on Twitter, and she also agreed! Here she is pictured with a green turtle, one just like Harry in the book.

My aim for the glowstone adventure series is to combine adventure, magic, and inspirational yet grounded messages for children in a world increasingly governed by an internet full of conflicting and often confusing messages. My books have tackled issues of bullying, bad manners and vanity (Katie Helps a Bear with Bad Hair!), with climate change featuring next (Katie Helps at Seal Sports Day – where melting sea ice is playing havoc with the annual seal hurdles competition!). I’ve another written focusing upon transgender issues, again, seeking to highlight topical issues in a sensitive and fun way.

Katie is based on my daughter (now 18) and I want both to be strong and fearless. There are not enough kids’ books with strong female leads and I want Katie to change this. My next book is a longer adventure novel called The Neptune Girl, featuring 14-year-old Amber, who has to somehow return an innocent crash-landed alien to Neptune in a post climate-catastrophe dystopian world. Should be out in summer 2021!

I see Authors’ Lounge playing a valuable role in helping to spread not just the joy of reading, to children and adults alike, but to help lift the voices of so many authors, like me, who wish their words to be heard – not all of us have the luxury of pre-existing celebrity which unfortunately seem to dominate in so many book shops these days.

As for me – I’m a part-time author, with a day job, so I write when I can. I’m married with two lovely kids living in a barn conversion in the southern English countryside, an inspiration if ever there was one. 

To find out more about my books visit my website.

or Twitter: @glowstonekatie