Port Douglas based author, Alan Horsfield, has written over 35 children’s books and his latest is a pirate time-warp adventure based in the South Pacific.

Mr Horsfield said he hasn’t stopped writing for over 40 years, writing 100s of educational texts for schools before moving on to children’s fiction.

“It's in my blood. I've retired but I refuse to play bingo or golf, so I continue writing and I get a buzz out of publishing a book,” he said.

Mr Horsfield said because he had a long career as a school teacher before writing he tends to write books that will challenge children intellectually.

“I make children use their imagination and their logic, so they feel satisfied at the end of it.

“I also enjoy playing with words, so I put a little bit of wordplay in my books, it adds another level to the story,” he said.

His latest book is called Pirates of Tahiti: A tale of two ships and was released late last year featuring the illustrations of former Port Douglas women, Nancy Bevington.

The book follows a modern-day young boy in Tahiti who is suddenly trapped in another time where pirates are prevalent. The boy is then kidnapped and put on a pirate ship.

“The story is what I call a time warp story, not science fiction and not fantasy, a wrinkle in time,” Mr Horsfield said.

“The book is loosely based on a true event where pirates did come to Tahiti on an old ship and had to take harbour and find a new ship.

“Missionaries there had a new ship and the pirates were going to raid it and take over because it was much more seaworthy and that's why it's called a tale of two ships,” he said.

Mr Horsfield said he was inspired to write this story after travelling to Tahiti and sailing around the islands on a ship.

“In Tahiti, we went to a cafe and there are pirate mannequins sitting in the back of the dining area and I thought well there's the start of a story.

“The thing that got me was that all pirate stories are usually written around the Caribbean and it hit me that there were are also pirates around Tahiti,” Mr Horsfield said.

The book is aimed at the 11 to 13-year-old age group and is for sale at the Port Douglas Markets every Sunday.