A Teignmouth Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) volunteer and local author has won an award at the London Book Fair.

Jason Mann was announced as the 2025 winner of the Selfies Adult Fiction Award for his Cornish mystery, ‘The Echoing Shore’.

Written under the name J.H.Mann, judges described the book as a pacy, absorbing story ‘that delivers to the very end’.

Jason, who has volunteered with the shore-based crew at Teignmouth RNLI for the last four years, said: ‘The London Book Fair is one of the largest events of its type in the world, so it was a tremendous honour to receive this award. I couldn’t believe it when I heard I’d won. It was one of those very special moments in my writing career that I will never forget.’

‘The Echoing Shore’ draws on Jason’s Cornish heritage. It tells the story of Kate Tregillis, the editor of a small newspaper on the brink of closure, who becomes obsessed with solving a longstanding mystery – the loss of the local lifeboat ten years earlier. In exposing the truth, she risks the future of her newspaper and even her life – and learns that the man she loves has his own secrets.

‘I wanted the story to bring out not only the raw majesty and beauty of Cornwall but also the deprivations that exist in many rural areas and small coastal towns,’ Jason said. ‘Cornwall has always been a special place for me. I have swum and surfed there much of my life and, in fact, my dad was one Cornwall’s early lifeguards.’

‘The Echoing Shore’, is Jason’s second book. It is available on Amazon in ebook and paperback formats. Jason is now working on his third novel, ‘The Silver Tide’. It is a 19th Century historical mystery, partly inspired by the tale of a woman who witnessed her fisherman father and three brothers die in a summer storm and then went on to help establish the local community’s first lifeboat.