Lancastrian novelist Katy Regan is celebrating the American publication of her sixth novel, ‘How to Find Your Way Home’, with hardback copies hitting bookshops across the United States in February.
The book is published in the USA by Penguin Random House, and is already available in the UK from Pan Macmillan, where it is enjoying warm reviews in national press.
Katy was brought up in Morecambe and the village of Bolton-le-Sands, near Carnforth and attended Carnforth High followed by Morecambe sixth form, before heading off to Leeds University to study English and French. She found success in London as commissioning editor of Marie Claire magazine, where she was also a columnist.
Now living with her teenaged son in Hertfordshire, the Lancastrian writer has fond memories of her upbringing overlooking Morecambe Bay, and still returns regularly to see her parents and extended family.
Two of Regan’s books have their main setting in her home county: ‘How We Met’, which is based in Lancaster, and her fourth novel, ‘The Story of You’, where the characters live along the coast in a fictionally-named Silverdale. This latest work ‘How to Find Your Way Home’ is her second hit in the USA, with her last novel ‘Little Big Love’ being described as ‘a triumph’ by New York Times bestselling author Sarah Vaughan. It too garnered five-star reviews in the national press.
“Not bad for a former barmaid at The Royal I suppose!” she laughs, recalling her youthful days pulling pints at the Morecambe prom watering hole.
Katy’s new book takes us into the lives of an ordinary English brother and sister driven apart in childhood by an extraordinary incident. As it unfolds, the reader is drawn along by the deep psychological undercurrents let loose when their long quest for reunion is finally achieved in adulthood.
This time, much of the action takes place on the marshes of Canvey Island in Essex and the wild landscapes of England’s east coast, but Regan says her early years exploring the mud-flats and saltmarshes of Morecambe Bay had a big impact on her choice of location.
‘I’ve always been drawn to writing about coastal places - especially ones I feel are forgotten like the North West and east coast. I’m interested in the mentality of people living in these places.
‘My main character in the new book, Stephen, is a passionate ornithologist. He adores the vast flocks of seabirds that migrate to the marshes and tide-ways of the Thames estuary, similar to the spectacular birdlife we are gifted with along the Lancashire coast.’
* How To Find Your Way Home, published by Pan Macmillan, is out now.
