The Intrepid Explorer’s Handbook

for Adventure Below the Tides

Eleven-year-old Pete Gilby’s sun-filled summer plans are all fogged over when his overworked dad maroons him with grouchy Great Aunt Pearl in a frigid Northern California fishing village called Periwinkle.

His dad left him a parting gift, but it’s only a ragged old tidepool guidebook. Even worse, when Pete tries to befriend a local girl, the exuberant Louise Reyes, he falls into the ocean, soaking the book and crushing his spirit.

However, to Pete and Louise’s amazement, drying the book reveals the long-forgotten secret to opening a portal in and out of enchanted tidepools. There they encounter a charming kaleidoscope of creatures and skirt lurking danger.

A peevish hermit crab named Mr. Shellbottom agrees to guide them, but after the goons of a maniacal crab known as the Decorator capture him, the kids risk life and limb to save their friend. They race against the tides, evade a philosophizing octopus and divebombing seagulls, and journey deep underwater to a hidden grotto fortress, the Hold Fast. There they must rally a brittle alliance of tidepool survivors in a desperate struggle against the Decorator’s unstoppable enforcers.

As Pete secretly moves between the tidepool realm and Periwinkle, Pearl’s gruff exterior thaws. She helps Pete work through the hurt of a family spread too thin and hints at their ancestors’ mysterious history with the tidepools. Introducing him to the natural wonders of Northern California, she takes Pete on a dizzying climb up a giant redwood and a nighttime kayak trip where phosphorescent plankton fade into a star-filled sky.

The Intrepid Explorer’s Handbook is complete at 60,000 words. Like Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, my book follows a protagonist struggling with his identity on an epic, magical adventure. It shares a sense of timelessness and appeal across ages with Wildwood and, like Greenglass House, is filled with mystery and intrigue.