Dancing with Mermaids

First published in 1985, Miles Gibson''s phantasmagoric second novel returns to print with a new preface by the author.

Wreathed in legends and haunted by ghosts, the little Dorset village of Rams Horn is a fantastical seaside world where reality ebbs and flows like the tide. A clairvoyant, waiting for her drowned husband to return from the grave, is taunted by demons, a mysterious African sailor arrives from the sea in search of lodgings, small boys spy on their mothers, and the new doctor, sitting in his empty surgery, turns to ancient remedies in a bid to cure his own love sickness.

''An imaginative tour de force and a considerable stylistic achievement... Gibson has few equals among his contemporaries.'' Time Out

''An extraordinary talent dances with perfect control across hypnotic pages.'' Financial Times