Linda Wilgus, "The Sea Child" (Ballantine, 2026)

Jan 20, 2026

Linda Wilgus, a debut novelist and former bookseller, takes listeners into the captivating world of her novel, The Sea Child. She delves into the rich Cornish folklore that inspired her story, centered around Isabel Henley, a girl found by the sea with mysterious origins. The podcast explores Isabel’s struggles with identity, her emotional ties to the ocean, and the community's history of smuggling. Wilgus shares insights into building Isabel’s character and the profound impact of the Cornish landscape on her narrative.

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ANECDOTE

Landscape Sparked The Story

Linda Wilgus describes hiking Cornwall's coastal path and picturing her protagonist hearing the ocean call.
A stay at Helford River and reading about the Seabooka sparked the novel's origin.

INSIGHT

Seabooka Is Practical Folk Belief

The Seabooka functions as both protector and punisher in Cornish lore, tied to winds, tides, and fertility.
Communities treated the spirit practically, offering sacrifices to secure safe passages and good catches.

ANECDOTE

Isabel's Adoption And Upbringing

Isabel is found as a wet, mute child and taken in by Admiral Farnworth and his wife who wanted children.
They advertise for her family, find none, and raise her as their daughter in Norfolk and London.

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Cornwall, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was best known for its smuggling. The combination of an insular and impoverished countryside, a rugged coastline characterized by numerous inlets and coves, and price hikes caused by the ongoing wars between Britain and France—played out in high tariffs and embargoes—created the perfect conditions for people desperate to make a living to defy what they saw as an unfair law. Over the years, those same characteristics have appealed to novelists from Daphne du Maurier to the present day.

The Sea Child (Ballantine, 2026)—which takes place in an isolated village in Cornwall, although on a river leading to the sea rather than the coastline itself—certainly dips into the long and contentious struggle between Cornish villagers and the British Crown. But at the heart of the story we find Isabel Henley, a young woman who, as a child of four, was plucked from the sea with no knowledge of her parents or her home. Adopted by local landlords, Isabel has grown up, moved away, married a naval man, and, following his death at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), returned to her childhood village. There she discovers that the legend surrounding her—that she is not entirely human but a daughter of the Sea Bucca, a merman who haunts the waters of the Cornish coast—survives and thrives.

Isabel discounts the locals’ tale, but she can’t deny that the river calls to her as she strolls along its banks at twilight …

Linda Wilgus—a former bookseller, knitting pattern designer, and writer of short stories, many of which have been published in literary magazines—lives in Cambridge, England, with her family. The Sea Child is her debut novel. Website here

C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels. Her next book, Song of the Silk Weaver, will appear in the second quarter of 2026.

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