Sometimes I wrote a story in a couple evenings other times it took me a whole year to complete one. I wrote the odd story in high school, but it was only in my twenties that I started writing 'real' stories, at night and on weekends.

'As a kid I'd often said I wanted to be a writer because I loved books and wanted to be associated with them. I intended to stay 6 months I'm still here. After getting a BA in English from Oberlin College (Ohio), I moved to London, England in 1984. 'I was born and grew up in Washington, DC. From the author of At the Edge of the Orchard and Girl With a Pearl Earring comes this incredible story of two remarkable women and their voyage of discovery Book Details Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty, mutual appreciation, and barely suppressed envy, but ultimately turns out to be their greatest asset. Mary soon finds an unlikely champion in prickly Elizabeth, a middle-class spinster who shares her passion for scouring the beaches.

After enduring bitter cold, thunderstorms, and landslips, her challenges only grow when she falls in love with an impossible man.

When she uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious community on edge, the townspeople to gossip, and the scientific world alight. On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, poor and uneducated Mary learns that she has a unique gift: 'the eye' to spot ammonites and other fossils no one else can see. From the New York Times bestselling novelist, a stunning historical novel that follows the story of Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, two extraordinary 19th century fossil hunters who changed the scientific world forever.

Remarkable creatures