I spend a bit of time at the beach, and one day the thought occurred - what would happen if someone met a mermaid? And who would that person be? A regular beach user would seem to be a likely candidate. Possibly a surfer...A young man, just returned to New Zealand from years in Australia, and finding that things had changed in his absence. As well as a mermaid, throw in a grandmother he didn't know about. I knew the relationship would be complicated, but even so I was surprised at how things turned out. They say books take on a life of their own, and that's certainly what happened with this one - all sorts of things happened that I wasn't expecting when I started to write it.