Writer and Environmentalist
‘The sack over Angel’s face smelled of old vomit and her cheek was tender and sticky. Her shoulder was bruised, and her throat burned from thirst and stomach acid. The water that they had forced down her throat was doped’… Storm Girl by Linda Nicklin.
Storm Girl
Linda Nicklin’s eco-thriller Storm Girl charts a dystopian near future. Planet earth has been largely drowned by rising sea levels, disease is rife and society has broken down. Everything is owned by the super-rich and exploited for their own personal gratification, including the people still struggling to live on what land remains. Angel has been harvested by a gang of reapers and is frantic to escape what she knows to be a death sentence. Her only way out is through the treacherous waters of a drowned city. From the depths of despair, she finds glimmers of hope, and becomes part of a growing resistance fighting back against the wholesale plundering of the planet. As the movement becomes stronger, Angel learns a devastating truth about herself. After all she has been through, she never anticipated facing the decision of whose side she is really on.
Angel’s story begins in Humberstone on the east coast of England, she then travels to York, Fowey, London and beyond making friends and enemies along the way. I have featured some of my favourite locations in Storm Girl. Angel canoes over my flooded home town and another main character lives under a railway arch in Leeds where the excellent Slung Low theatre used to be based. (I did an excellent script writing course under those arches).
There are many themes in Storm Girl but the cold, hard reality of neoliberalism’s end game and the total disaster that is the search for endless growth on a finite planet is plain to see around us now.
In York, angel stays in a women’s community based on the Beguinages that were found in northern Europe during the 13th century. They were secular women’s communities, autonomous of church and state; the last one closed in 1927.
Clifford’s Tower York
Xmas Fayre at Slung Low Arches. The inspirational for Raph’s home
Thanks to Ramon Marett for the excellent art work. cover image shows Angel standing on the top of Clifford’s Tower in York. The ruins of the minster can be seen behind her.
Review of Storm Girl by Mark Henderson
‘Linda Nicklin extrapolates from the current perilous state of the Earth to a horrific future where such scraps of our resources that remain are ruthlessly exploited by the super-rich and the rest of the (much reduced) human population is among those scraps. If you suppose this to be a hysterical over-reaction to the climate crisis by a half-informed zealot, read the Appendix of "Storm Girl" and follow the links. You'll find evidence for some of the wealth of impeccable research that has formed the basis for this story. It will give you cold shudders….’
Review by Yorkshire Lass
‘If you want adventure, family disfunction, mystery, romance, espionage, horror and a squint at what the future may hold, then you have stumble upon the perfect book.
The story flows effortlessly, carrying the reader along on a roller coaster of emotions as Angel (Storm Girl) navigates her way through a nightmarish world destroyed by climate change and greedy ruthless 'elites'. An orphan raised by her stepfather, Angel is abducted by 'reapers'. She manages to escape and soon realises that she has a huge responsibility that she can not afford to shirk…’
Here is a video of an interview of me discussing Storm Girl
And here is a link to an interview by author Stuart Aken
About Me
I was born in Lincolnshire in the East Midlands of the UK. I worked as an Occupational Therapist for a number of years before opting for early retirement in 2012. Giving up work isn’t as easy as stopping being paid for it, however, and the process of retirement has largely consisted of finding lots of new kinds of work to retire from.
After numerous adventures, including completing the Great North Run, joining a rock choir, learning how to work with stained glass, quilt-making, bread-making, and chasing people off ornamental gardens for a local stately home when I decided to share the stories that have been bubbling around in my head for years and I settled down and studied for a MA in Creative Writing.
I have had several short stories highly commended, and scripts short listed and performed as part of local and national competitions. My scripts tend to be comedies and my novels dystopian.
I am an active and committed environmentalist, and still make the occasional loaf of bread, enjoy a flash mob and practice my ‘damage limitation’ approach to sewing. Actually that probably describes my life. Try- Learn- Grow- Repeat.
Where to buy Storm Girl
I am so pleased to tell you that Storm Girl is now available in paperback, e-book and kindle format here: https://tinyurl.com/yydm9dk2 , here https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54968949-storm-girl?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=rneZ8Jyf2A&rank=1 .
You can also pop into Unicorn Books in St Benedicts Square on Lincoln High Street, buy a copy and chat to a real person.
During September 2022 Fantastic books are relaunching books published during the pandemic. I am so pleased that Storm Girl will be a part of their Massive Autumn Book Launch Event. (M.A.B.L.E.). There will be publicity, special offers and promotions. You can catch up with me and my FB author friends here https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/m-a-b-l-e/mable-schedule. See you there!
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