Many years ago I saw a TV programme about pot-holing where people were exploring underground caves, some as small as cosy rooms, some as vast as cathedrals.  A river ran through the caves, joining them together in the way a street joins together a neighbourhood of houses. 

That same month, the wildlife calendar on my wall had a picture of an otter.  The writing underneath said that otters spent a lot of their time in the water but made their homes in holes in the river bank. 

As I was looking at all these caves along the underground river I began to think.  What lovely homes they would make for a people who liked to live in river banks.  A people who had evolved from the otter family in the rivers of Europe, perhaps, while a different people was evolving from the ape family on the plains of Africa. 

What would the everyday lives of these river-men be like?  What about their culture – would they have religion, music, art?  Could they read and write?

And what would have happened to them when those land-men from Africa eventually arrived in Europe?

This was my starting point for Midsummer Legend, which explores the history of the meerling people while at the same time following the story of one particular young meerling (as these people call themselves), Moroc, and his family at a time of great crisis.

Midsummer Legend  is suitable for boys and girls, 10+ to adult.

Here’s what a 13-year-old boy thought about it: 

’A thoroughly enjoyable book to read. It has its sad moments, and its happy moments and for the time I was reading Midsummer Legend I felt I was actually there inside the book, feeling the emotions all the characters felt. Midsummer Legend transported me to a different world full of adventure and I was sad to have to finish the book, I just wanted it to keep going on.

I found this book very hard to put down because the chapter always ends on a cliff-hanger and you feel you want to go on to find out what happens next...

I especially liked the two different stories going on at the same time, the different extracts from the Legend and Moroc’s story worked excellent side-by-side and made the book almost flawless.’

And here’s what a mother wrote:

’Hold onto your hats and anything else that’s flapping. Watership Down has nothing on these brave little meerlings. As well as finding a new home away from landmen they also have to contend with power struggles from within - meet relatives they never knew existed and possibly discover where they came from. Enchantingly enjoyable and enjoyed by my whole family!!!’
 

To buy Midsummer Legend click here

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Midsummer Legend illustrations by the author