Krissy Kneen

So it's really back to basics living.

She's a sculptor and she makes things from found objects.

She goes mudlarking on the beach where the sea is washing up all sorts of old objects, including, of course, plastic bottles and buckets and horrible things that are filling our sea, but also much older things, bones and things.

buttons and bits of rope and sea glass and she gathers all these together and she calls them her makings and in her studio she puts them together into objects that sometimes we can see sometimes we can't but the watermen are rather fearsome figures that she puts on the shore almost as though they're spirits that will keep away intruders into her world.

it is and it's making use of the world that's falling apart around her so she's turning something quite tragic into something very beautiful and in fact she can sell the work and live off her art which not many artists do i see so there's two kind of stratas of society operating because frankly it sounds like kitty's really living the life i don't

Well, she thought she had the perfect life and she still loves her dissolving island.

She doesn't want to leave, but circumstances force her.

And when these children turn up, one of them being her pregnant granddaughter, she has to protect them from what's going on because a drone comes over the island.

A birdwatcher turns up and seems slightly suspicious.

They can't shut the world out, which is a lesson we all learn from this book.

And so she has to get them off the island and they more or less go on the run.

Her shut-off self opens up to these children and they become her reason for living and surviving.

And she has a lot to atone for in her own life, doesn't she?

She's left people, she's hurt people, bad things have happened.

And so she is taking on these children as her way to give something back, I think.

Recreate a family, I think.

I like it.

So what's the writing itself like?

Absolutely beautiful.

I mean, I love this book on every level.