Award-winning Torquay journalist draws on epic sea stories for new mystery thriller

Jason, of Babbacombe Road, who writes under the name J.H.Mann, said: “The Echoing Shore is, of course, completely fictitious but it was inspired by real-life stories of the sea which have fired my imagination since I was a boy and also my own experiences as a local journalist. Amazing tales told by my parents remain strong in my memory. My dad was one of Cornwall’s early lifeguards – at Bude – and I’m a shore-based volunteer for the lifeboat service at Teignmouth. He was offered the job after an astonishing tragedy in which his predecessor was killed by a strike of lightning during a rescue!”

The Echoing Shore is set in the fictitious fishing community of St Branok though some of the Cornish locations in the book do exist, such as the seaside town of Perranporth and the ancient stone circle at Bowcawen-un.

It was an award winner at the international 2023 Yeovil Literary Prize, one of the UK’s longest established novel competitions, and is available on Amazon in ebook and paperback formats. The book cover was produced by MiblArt, a Ukrainian company based in Lvov.

Jason’s first novel Hidden Depths, published last year, was an award winner in a major American competition and one of seven novels shortlisted for a UK adult fiction award.

He is now working on a 19th century Cornish historical mystery called The Silver Tide. It is set in the same fictitious Cornish fishing town as The Echoing Shore, albeit more than a century earlier.

Once again, it was inspired by a variety of true stories, including the astonishing tale of a young woman called Margaret Brown who saw her fisherman father and three brothers die in a summer storm and then went on to help establish the local community’s first lifeboat.