WE WERE pleasantly swamped under a tsunami of signings at Gullivers during the launch of local author Joanna Rossiter’s debut novel The Sea Change recently.

The store filled with well-wishers, some spilling out onto the pavement and taking advantage of the warm late sun. Those who arrived early enjoyed an impromptu and unexpected peal from the great Minster bells across the green. A fitting launch I think for Joanna’s visceral and haunting novel – undoubtedly not to be missed – and a recommended summer read which will have its readers queuing for more from the author’s pen.

The Sea Change is a story of a mother and a daughter both caught up in life changing events – both real historical happenings – which, although very different in nature and continents bring similar and deeply moving consequences.

Alice is thousands of miles from the home she was desperate to leave and wakes in the morning to see a tsunami wave on the horizon taller than her Kanyakumari beach guest house.

Yesterday was Alice’s wedding day. This morning her husband is nowhere to be found.

On this side of the world, her estranged mother, Violet, is still troubled by her forced evacuation from her home in the once idyllic Wiltshire village of Imber, requisitioned by the army during the Second World War, which now lies in ruins – she is also haunted by the shadow of the man she once loved.

Available from Gullivers, of course, and from all other good bookshops.