Longlisted for the Children’s Wainwright Prize for Fiction 2025

The High-and-Dry is a windswept land that is being fast lost to the ever-growing sea. The only things left are seagulls, seaweed, twins Luna and Oona, and their Grandad Mull. Luna and Oona have grown up listening to Grandad Mull’s stories about the dastardly shape-shifting fishfolk who live in the sea around them and cause the waves to swallow the shore with their spells. Storms sent by fishfolk are the reason why Grandad Mull is all that is left of their family, he says. But when Luna and Oona meet a fishfolk for real, Luna begins to question her grandfather’s stories much to Oona’s confusion.

A strikingly original and moving fable for our times from debut author Steven Quincey-Jones. With black and white woodcut-style illustrations.

Praise for Fishfolk:

‘This is the most astonishing debut, a breath-taking tale both traditional and dystopian. Steven Quincey-Jones’ middle grade novel Fishfolk is a fable-filled fantasy about the bond between twin sisters marooned in a drowned land, not knowing who to trust. Grownups will hear echoes of the refugee and climate crisis; young readers will be gripped by the perilous adventure. I was swept away by the playfulness of Steven’s language, (reminiscent of Max Porter), by the creative typography and Hannah Doyle’s striking cover. This is the kind of haunting, beautiful, heart-stopping book that will set children’s imaginations alight.’ -Carnegie winner Tia Fisher

‘A rich and generous fable about sisterhood that delights in the smell of earth under its fingernails as much as it does in playing with language. Equal parts bog history and prophetic environmental warning, Luna and Oona’s bleak childhoods of moss and mulch are rendered with startling clarity and often dark humour. But their bond holds a deep humanity and, therefore, an unextinctable hope. Pushing at the boundaries of what a page can do to realise his total vision, Steven Quincey-Jones has imagined the rainiest of clouds but never once forgotten its silver lining. This is a great, heaving surge of a book. I loved it.’ -Branford Boase shortlisted YA author Luke Palmer

‘Fishfolk is an innovative and beautifully written story about trust and betrayal. Set in a strange, otherworldly realm which isn’t quite real and isn’t quite fantasy, it kept me guessing until the end. A brilliant debut.’ -Middle grade thriller author Simon Fox

‘It’s almost magical to read, the pace is fast and the words just seem to roll like the sea. A beautiful book.’ – Ellie Becker-Willett

‘It has more poetry in its prose than most verse novels I’ve read.’ – A.F. Harold

Find Fishfolk at Amazon.