Emma Bamford Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Emma Bamford
Emma Bamford is a journalist and an author that has worked for Sailing Today, the Daily Mirror, the Independent, BOAT International, and the Daily Express.

Emma spent years sailing among some of the world’s most beautiful islands and wrote two travel memoirs about her experiences, “Untie the Lines” and “Casting Off”.

She is a graduate of the University of East Anglia’s Prose Fiction MA, and lives in the United Kingdom.

Emma had a pretty normal life to start with, growing up with her little brother and sister under the watchful eyes of her parents in Nottingham and Lincoln. After she studied English Literature at Southampton University and Newspaper Journalism at UCLan, she began working as a cub reporter for the Bicester Review and then the Derby Evening Telegraph, as she cut her journalistic teeth grilling parish council members and interviewing organizers of local fetes.

Fleet Street beckoned her and highlights of her career as a news editor and reporter include quizzing the incumbent Home Secretary on his preferred sort of cheese, asking F1 driver Jason Button what his favorite toasted sandwich filling was, and peeing in Bruce Forsyth’s downstairs loo. There was some hard hitting and serious journalism in there for a fair number of years as well.

Then, while in her early 30s and having grown bored with her ‘fairly normal life’ that she forged for herself, she took a career break and, despite all protestations from family and friends, answered this ad online for ‘crew wanted’. She flew off to Borneo to live on this boat with a guy that she hadn’t ever met and the guy’s cat. She found herself hunting elephants in the jungle, running from pirates, and visiting deserted islands. She finally wound up among billionaires, working as a stewardess on this superyacht in Italy.

Emma gets inspired to write usually by the sudden thought of a germ of an idea. She’ll quickly jot these ideas down and think about them for awhile. If the story grows in her imagination, she tends to think there could be a novel in it. Then the process of writing begins and some of the ideas really don’t work out at that stage, so she abandons them.

She is also a big believer in experiencing real life. How can you possibly write convincingly if you are just shut up in your room all day? So she gets out and about, observing the details of things that happen all around her, and that helps this entire process along.

“Casting Off” is a non-fiction book that was released in 2014. Emma is swept along, as a journalist on a national newspaper, with the London rat race. However the thrill of breaking a news story is no longer enough for her, and while she is still struggling to get a fourth date, her friends all have been settling down in the country to family and marriage.

Emma decides she’ll grasp her life by its roots and reclaim her freedom, by running away to sea and joining some total stranger (and his cat) on his yacht in Borneo.

Emma’s journey has her finding happiness and adventure in the most unlikely of places, and while she learns to just let go and leave things to chance, her true story illustrates that it really is possible to break free and find happiness, and love, on your own terms.

“Untie the Lines” is a non-fiction book that was released in 2016. Emma, former stressed out city girl and journalist, lives the dream. She is in Malaysia, and lives with Guy on a yacht, and they have plans to explore some of the most exotic and isolated areas. Adventures in the Caribbean, Asia, and America call to them. Life, free from the nine-to-five grind and rat race, could not be more perfect. Or could it?

Such dreams just cannot last forever. Eventually forced to head back to London, to her crippling, old, fast paced world, she finds herself struggling with panic attacks and anxiety as well as losing the fight between heart and head. Running, or sailing away, just isn’t an option any longer.

“Deep Water” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 2022. Paradise’s dark side gets exposed when this horrified couple reveals their daunting experience on an isolated island to their rescuers, just to realize they’re still in the grips of the secrets of the island.

This Navy vessel comes across this yacht in the middle of the vast Indian Ocean, and Captain Danial Tengku orders his ship rush to its aid. On board this yacht is a British couple: Jake, who is horribly injured, and Virginie, his traumatized wife, who breathlessly confesses that it’s all her fault, that she killed them.

While trembling with fear, she reveals their stunning story to Danial. Months prior, the couple spent all of their live savings on this yacht, filled with excitement for exploring the exotic lands and high seas together. They begin at the busy harbors in Malaysia and, through word of mouth, they learn about this remote, small island filled with unspoiled beaches. When they show up, they learn they’re not the only visitors and soon get entangled with this motley crew of expat sailors. Their adventurous dream becomes a horrifying nightmare.

Now, it is up to Danial to figure out exactly how much truth there is in her alarming story. However when his crew learn something shocking, he realizes that if he does not act soon, they could each fall under the island’s dark spell.

This is a pacy and gripping read, one that is beautifully written, suspenseful, and evocative. Emma delivers a debut which unfolds with the inexorable force of a nightmare, and is an object lesson in why some paradises should really just remain lost. Readers were hooked right from the beginning and quite intrigued to learn where this story was heading. The descriptions of traveling and sailing are in abundance, and at times Emma’s prose is poetic and is able to make it feel like you are on that island and their yacht with them.