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stories from the five islands
Blair Penhaligon writes atmospheric coastal fiction shaped by islands, folklore, family silence and the things official records fail to hold.
A lighthouse. A wrong light. A seam in time.
An improbability of puffins.
The debut novel
An Improbability of Puffins
Ellie Pentreath has spent half her life avoiding the sea. Then the sea finds a new method.
Inheritance
Suspended after reporting a voice no one else believed was there, Ellie returns to the Isles of Scilly expecting an inheritance she can refuse. Instead, a dead musician leaves her a lighthouse, with conditions, a legal deadline, and a light that appears to remember the women in her family.
The tower is not empty.
It is remembering.
LATEST NEWS
An Improbability of Puffins named a Darley Anderson finalist
An Improbability of Puffins has been named one of three finalists in Darley Anderson & Associates' 2026 Characters Most Wanted competition.
A lovely piece of news for a novel so concerned with the people we remember, the people we lose, and the characters who refuse to stay quietly in the record.
Competition News Update
Cheshire Novel Writing Prize 2026
An Improbability of Puffins has been named in the Top 100 in this years competition.
#Cheshirenovelprizesnippets2026 # Top100 Speculative Mystery:
After her radio career collapses around a voice no one else can hear, a woman inherits a remote lighthouse from a stranger, where an impossible beam is rewriting the sea’s routes and her family’s past.
I got some great feedback from Sara Cox, the Cheshire Novel Prize Founder - thank you - I'll use it going forward as I edit the novel towards publication.
From the Isles
The Isles of Scilly are real ... the stories are fiction.
The novel draws on the salt, weather and isolation of Scilly: island boats, gig crews, flower farms, vanished birds, wrong lights, ferry crossings, local radio, bakery warmth and the thin line between public record and private grief.
The Light
A red-and-white tower on a headland. No cottage. No comfort. Only glass, weather and witness.
The Birds
Puffins first. Then goldfinches, robins and swallows: return, territory, charm and homecoming.
The Boats
Pilot gigs cutting through fog: six rowers, one coxswain, old routes under modern water.
The Record
Radio tape, room tone, council minutes, archives, and the question of who gets to decide what is true.
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