We sent a few questions to author Becca Rogers about The Girl with Gills! The answers may just tempt you to buy the book!
Tell us about The Girl with Gills and where the idea for this story came from.
Living near a river, I often wonder what’s going on beneath the surface. I was in a writing workshop, when Effra, The Girl with Gills, swam into my imagination. From the first moment, she lived on a houseboat, had gills and scoured the river looking for treasure. I’ve always been fascinated by mudlarking, so I knew this would be part of her story. As I kept writing, Effra’s friends and family floated into view – not to mention the fearsome Rat Queen and the very villainous Rivermun.
As a debut author, can you tell us about your journey to publication?
My dad was a bookseller for over twenty years, and I grew up dreaming of one day having a book of my own on the shelves. For many years, I wrote in my spare time, but after lockdown, I decided to follow my heart. I enrolled on the Writing for Children and Young Adults twelve-month course at the Golden Egg Academy, subsequently graduating from their prestigious mentorship programme. The Shaw Agency signed me and when Zephyr offered to publish, I dived in without hesitation. I’d have been mad-as-a-mud-crab not to!
The proof copy mentions that part of the story is inspired by “mudlarking”. Can you share your experience with mudlarking?
Mudlarking is searching the foreshore of tidal rivers for valuable, interesting or historical objects; a ‘mudlark’ was a recognised occupation until the beginning of the 20th century. From the domestic to the fantastic, items wash ashore telling us stories about the inhabitants of history. For instance, the bronze head of Roman Emperor Hadrian was found in the Thames near London Bridge in 1848. Equally interesting might be a bent sixpence, a token of long-lost love. I live beside the beautiful River Exe in Devon, so I always have my eyes peeled as I walk beside it. In The Girl with Gills, Effra’s community are descended from mudlarks and have evolved over centuries to have gills.
This book has brilliant world building- was it easy to imagine and then write this world into the story?
The larkers’ world grew richer in my mind with every sentence I wrote – and rewrote! It was a pleasure to create the wealth of flora and fauna within the River Yore, and of course the strange inhabitants who evolved, out of sight, beneath the water. Living by a river myself, the salty air, scream of seagulls and ever-changing tidal landscape offer constant inspiration.
What do you hope readers will take from Effra’s story and her as a character?
Effra is fiercely loyal and as determined as a rising tide. However, when we first meet her, she can’t speak about the loss of her grandfather, Boppa; words get stuck in her throat, like fish on a hook. She is also deeply suspicious of ‘landlubbers.’ Throughout the story, Effra challenges her preconceptions and becomes best friends with a rat called Clay and a landlubber called Bow. She develops the courage to be vulnerable, as well as the bravery to tackle a terrifying river serpent! The story explores themes of friendship and belonging, and I hope readers will be inspired by Effra’s kindness, her resilience and her capacity to evolve.
Are you working on anything else at the moment that you can hint at?
My next middle-grade adventure, Scamp Saltbrace and the Tidal Clock, will be out in 2026! 13-year-old Scamp is scared of the sea, which makes her a misfit in her sailor family. She feels like the faulty cog in a mechanism and, despite her gift for engineering, there isn’t a wrench that can fix that. But when an ancient truce is broken, Scamp must overcome her fear to brave the waves, gain the trust of vicious, black-fanged mermaids and restore a tidal clock that controls the oceans. Her sister, True, refuses to let Scamp go alone. They are joined by their artistic friend Quinlan and – to his surprise – an extremely independent cat called Tails.
THE GIRL WITH GILLS by Becca Rogers is out now in paperback for 9+ year olds (Zephyr)
