Jo Beverley

There's a magical energy and power from the ocean. I was born in a room overlooking the sea, in the middle of a storm. Perhaps, then, it's not surprising that shores touch my soul. Science might disagree, but I think there's a difference in the air on a coast - the positive ions, perhaps.

When a gently born spinster has little money, her choices are few. She might receive an offer of marriage, but it's unlikely to be from a wealthy man, so she'll have a hard life trying to make ends meet for her growing family.

It is only when you watch the dense mass of thousands of ants, crowded together around the Hill, blackening the ground, that you begin to see the whole beast, and now you observe it thinking, planning, calculating. It is an intelligence, a kind of live computer, with crawling bits for its wits.