The Perfect Presents For ... All About Mia

As part of the All About Mia blog tour, I'm so pleased to welcome author, Lisa Williamson, onto the blog to tell us which what would be the perfect presents for the characters in her latest book, All About Mia. 

I love buying presents so when I was tasked with doing a spot of fantasy shopping for the characters in my latest novel All About Mia, I was raring to go. 

All About Mia tells the story of sixteen year-old Mia and her sisters. There may be a family resemblance but stuck in the middle of academically gifted Grace and talented swimmer Audrey, Mia constantly feels like the odd one out. As you might be able to tell from the gift selections below, here are three sisters with not a whole lot in common…

MIA

These trainers are totally bonkers but I have the feeling Mia might be just the girl to pull them off. They’re her in signature hot pink and would look amazing with bare legs, denim shorts, slogan t-shirt and slouchy bomber jacket: 

I like to think she’d team them with these socks:

Mia doesn’t apologise if she help it. This cap should help get the message across:

Mia isn’t much of a reader but I reckon she’d love Girl Up by Everyday Sexism founder Laura Bates. Frank, funny and bold, this myth-busting manifesto has been described as ‘a bracing love letter to teenage girls’. I can picture Mia quoting it to the boys at school:

GRACE

Grace has dreamed of attending Cambridge University since she was tiny. Now she has a place to study Classics in the autumn, this official hoodie is a must-have:

Grace is incredibly neat and organised so a bullet journal would be right up her street. I imagine Grace’s would be utterly immaculate and have a very complicated colour-coding system:

Grace adores books and reading. With dominant notes of paper, vanilla and leather, this candle apparently captures the smell of aged books (a vital component of Grace’s ‘signature scent’ ­- ­­see page 1 of All About Mia!):

Grace is hugely ambitious and has her life carefully mapped out. She desperately wants to make a difference one day so I think What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20:

A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World by Tina Seelig should be top of her reading list. It covers the tricky transition from academic environment to professional world, complete with fascinating examples, inspiring advice and lots of humour. Grace’s copy would be highlighted and expertly annotated in no time:

AUDREY

Every morning Audrey gets up at the crack of dawn for swimming practice, throwing her dinosaur onesie over her swimsuit. I think it might just be time for a snazzy update:

Audrey is devoted to her guinea pig Beyoncé, so what better gift than this super cute cushion:

Audrey’s favourite film of all-time is Mary Poppins so I was really excited to find this drawstring bag for her keep her swimming gear in:

With school and her full-on swimming schedule, Audrey doesn’t get much time to read. Her dream is the 2020 Olympics so I reckon she’d perhaps carve out the time to read Relentless Spirit: The Unconventional Raising of a Champion, a memoir by US gold medalist Missy Franklin. Co-written with Missy’s parents, it describes the highs and lows of the life of a teenage athlete, something Audrey can definitely relate to: 

*****

All About Mia is published by David Fickling Books in February 2017

Summary

One family, three sisters.

GRACE, the oldest: straight-A student. 

AUDREY, the youngest: future Olympic swimming champion. 

And MIA, the mess in the middle. 

Mia is wild and daring, great with hair and selfies, and the undisputed leader of her friends - not attributes appreciated by her parents or teachers. 

When Grace makes a shock announcement, Mia hopes that her now-not-so-perfect sister will get into the trouble she deserves. 

But instead, it is Mia whose life spirals out of control - boozing, boys and bad behaviour - and she starts to realise that her attempts to make it All About Mia might put at risk the very things she loves the most.

 

To find out more about Lisa Williamson: 

Twitter / Website

To check out all the stops on the blog tour:

#ReviewMonday with @lockwoodwriter : The Wrong Train by Jeremy De Quidt

Published 1st September 2016 by David Fickling Books

220 pages in hardback

Summary from Publisher’s website

It’s late. Dark. A boy rushes to catch a train, leaping aboard just before it pulls away. Suddenly he realises that it’s the wrong train. He’s annoyed, of course, but not scared.

. . . Yet.

He gets off at the next station, but the platform’s empty, and it doesn’t look like any station he’s seen before. But he’s still not scared.

. . . Yet.

Then a stranger arrives - someone with stories to help pass the time. Only these aren’t any old stories. These are nightmares, and they come with a price to pay.

. . . Scared yet?

You will be.

***

The handwritten compliments slip with my review copy says;

My advice is to read it with the lights firmly on!

This is wise advice - though one particular story in this eerie collection may make you feel differently. Certainly don’t read it at twilight on a nearly empty train halted in the Sussex countryside as I did - way too much like life imitating art.

The Wrong Train has a locomotive structure - an opening story as the engine that pulls along eight other tales linked like an assortment of due-to-be-retired carriages. There’s a goods van of an ending too - which leaves you alone on an abandoned platform in the middle of nowhere watching faint red lights disappear.

The effect of the progressively unsettling stories leads to a cumulative sense of dread. Not suitable for the easily unnerved. But for those of us who love a good scare (as opposed to gore and horror), The Wrong Train is ideal. I love how ghost stories unite readers of many ages - and this would sit well alongside any of Chris Priestley’s chilling Tales of Terror series.

The cover and illustrations by Dave Shelton reflect the contemporary setting - but the scares inside resist being dated. It will be read again by the courageous and the connoisseur. Perfect for the Halloween season - if you’re brave enough to go aboard.

“Not for passengers of a nervous disposition…”

---

K. M. Lockwood lives by the sea in Sussex - see the pics on Instagram. She fills jars with sea-glass, writes on a very old desk and reads way past her bedtime. Her tiny bed-and-breakfast is stuffed full of books - and even the breakfasts are named after writers. You're always welcome to chat stories with @lockwoodwriter on Twitter.

The Call by Peadar O'Guillin

On her tenth birthday Nessa overhears an argument in her parent's bedroom. She knows nothing about the Three Minutes yet. How could she? The whole of society is working to keep its children innocent. She plays with dolls. She believes the lies about her brother; and when her parents tuck her into bed at night - her grinning dad, her fussy mam - they show her only love. 

Published by David Fickling Books in September 2016

Pages - 334

Imagine a world where you might disappear any minute, only to find yourself alone in a grey sickly land, with more horrors in it than you would ever wish to know about. And then you hear a horn and you know that whoever lives in this hell has got your scent and the hunt has already begun.

Could you survive the Call?

****

I'll be honest, I had no intention of reading this book, but when I was trying to figure out which books to take on holiday, so many people recommended this one and I'm so glad they did. Kudos to social media!

This is a very dark book which makes you believe there is very little hope of our heroine surviving till the end. Not only does she have polio, which makes moving fast extremely difficult but she has to fight for her life against the Sidhe who only wish to play with her cruelly. 

Nessa is the unlikely heroine of this book. She will not let her condition hold her back. She is determined to beat the odds which are extremely low. Nessa watches as many of her friends as well as enemies return from their time with the Sidhe, either extremely disfigured or dead. She refuses to give up hope. 

Nessa isn't just fighting for her survival against the Sidhe, she is also fighting against Conor and his gang, who are determined to kill her before she even enters the Sidhe world. 

The Sidhe want revenge. They've watched their world taken from them and they will stop at nothing to get back what is truly theirs. They are wicked, hunting these kids for fun and distorting their bodies like they were made from Playdoh. 

The idea of spending your whole life training for three minutes of pure hell, which in the Sidhe world is more like twenty four hours, is frightening. The teenagers never really know when they will be called and they need to be permanently ready for hell. 

At times this book is gruesome, enough to make you feel really uncomfortable. But the story is so gripping, you can't put it down. You have to follow Nessa on her unfortunate journey.

The ending is brilliant. Such an excellent twist, which I honestly didn't see coming. 

I hope that the author returns to this world, because I'm certain the Sidhe have unfinished business. 

If you loved the Hunger Games, this book is definitely for you. Think The Hunger Games meets The Lord of the Flies. Truly an original.  Survival of the fittest doesn't necessarily ring true. Survival of the smartest is the only truth. 

Exclusive: First Chapter of Devil's Blood by Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil

How exciting is this?

I get to share the first chapter of Devil's Blood ( Book 2: The Books of Pandemonium) by Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil with you! 

Described as

"A mind-blowing adventure series filled with no-holds barred swashbuckling, alchemical time travel and mystery, that fans of Jonathan Stroud, Charlie Higson and Rick Riordan will revel in."

Read the first chapter right now. 

Are you ready for more?

Book 1 and 2 are now available to buy. 

Summary

BOOK 1: BLACK ARTS 

Elizabethan London is in the grip of devil fever, teeming with thievery, sorcery, and black magic. Lovable rogue Jack’s biggest talent is not being noticed in-amongst the fray, but when he turns his dab-hand to pickpocketing a mysterious traveller, he finds himself drawn into a metropolis of danger like none he’s ever encountered before... 

Atmospheric writing, the occult and a reluctant hero combine in this story with real swagger. 

BOOK 2: DEVIL’S BLOOD 

Ever since his run-in with the Elect, Jack the pick-pocket can see devils. 

In fact, he has one in his service: the irrepressible Imp. But devils are tricksy creatures, and when a ploy with a devil of mischief goes wrong, Jack and the Imp, with his companions Beth and Kit, are transported 200 years into the future, to an age of rationality which no longer believes in devils of any kind. 

Big mistake. Georgian Londoners are about to learn the true nature of their city - as Jack and his friends are plunged into a demonic plot which threatens to permanently end their adventures.

About the authors

Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil met at school where they edited their school magazine together. Since then they

have collaborated on running a circus and writing dialogue for robots, as well as writing novels. @ajrprentice

Check out the rest of the blog tour below. 

Inspire Me with Andy Mulligan

To celebrate the publication of Liquidator, I am pleased to welcome the author, Andy Mulligan onto the blog, to talk about what inspired him to write this book.

Books pop up out of the day-to-day cut and thrust of meeting, talking and laughing. The one I’m working on right now was inspired by a ten year-old boy who was telling me about his pet dog. “I think he wants to be a cat, really,” he said - and the surrealism of that locked onto me. My school series, Ribblestrop, emerged when I was walking past a ruined stately-home in Cornwall. It was for sale and my companion said, “Come on, Andy - let’s buy it. We’ll call it a school, and you can be the headmaster.” LIQUIDATOR, however - and it’s out this month - started off as a joke.

The joke surrounded the concept of work-experience, which every child does and is all too often a predictable disappointment. The child usually looks forward to it. Perhaps he or she has secured a placement at a hospital, and is hoping to be useful, active, creative and essential. Alas, when I was a teacher the kids would invariably come back to school having experienced only that sad stranglehold of health and safety concerns - they hadn’t been allowed to do anything. “I made the coffee on the first day, but then they said I might burn myself, and they weren’t insured…”

I always hoped that one day, a would-be teenage surgeon would come rushing back to class, shouting “It was great! I opened a rib-cage! The midwife was late - I delivered the baby!” It never happened in life, so that was the gag I’ve put into fiction: seven children set off on their work-experience week, and each child is launched into the most amazing experience. It’s a thrill, of course - I love a good page-turning adventure where the heroes dice with death - and I wanted a good villain. Good villains aren’t easy to come by, because people don’t tend to walk around rubbing their hands thinking, “What bad thing can I do today?” Villains are all too often people who have convinced themselves they have no choices, and have been told for too long that their behavior is acceptable. In LIQUIDATOR the villain is a drinks company that wants to do what all too many companies do: maximize profit at the expense of anything noble, decent, moral or right - (sorry, Volkwagon, if you’re reading this). The company I’ve created doesn’t make cars, though. It’s spent millions circumventing health legislation to create a highly addictive kids’ energy drink. They’ve trialed it on poor children in Africa - one of whom is dying, slowly and painfully as a result - and now they’re ready to flood the market. Our heroes discover this, and have to pit their wits against rich, powerful, deadly people.

I like to think it’s exciting, frightening and funny. It took a long time to write - two and half years, in all - because the plot is wildly complicated, and to weave in that many characters is a kind of choreography that takes a lot of thought. It’s not an ISSUES book - I’m never inspired by the challenge of ‘raising an issue’, though people often assume that is a motivation. I’m inspired by characters, and the sheer thrill of telling a good story. When I was at school I was enthralled by a tale well told, and I don’t find it easy to analyse how our imaginations and emotions commit to something we know to be invented. I saw ‘Jurassic World’ last month, which is two hours long. For me, it was two hours of wonder…I screamed, I cried, I had my hands over my eyes - I was there in the Perspex pod as the monster tried to prize it open. The storyteller can’t be cynical: he has to believe that his audience is ready to go on that journey, and feel. I suppose that is the most inspiring thought of all: that as you sit at the laptop, tapping out the sentences, you’re conjuring something that will be more real - for a short time - than reality.

Liquidator by Andy Mulligan was published by David Fickling Books on the 1st October 2015

Summary

LIQUIDATOR! The brand-new, delicious and wildly popular energy drink. "For those who wanna win!" The company that makes it is set to earn a fortune, with its global launch climaxing at an international rock concert that will SHAKE the planet. The only problem?An innocent child is dying. Meet Vicky and her class-mates - their work experience is about to spin totally out of control as they uncover a secret that could change the world. And put them all in mortal danger ...From the award-winning author of TRASH comes an action-packed thriller full of danger, hilarity and - above all - friendship.

To find out more about Andy Mulligan:

Website 

Secret Serendipity Seven with Jon Walter

I am so pleased to welcome author, Jon Walter onto the blog. Jon Walter has a brand new YA book coming out, called My Name is Not Friday, which is historical, set during the Civil War.

•  I got married in secret and we had to find our witnesses at the registry office. If you’re thinking of doing this, try to bear in mind the amount of dishonesty required to keep it secret afterwards. For some reason we didn’t think that bit through. Also, we didn’t get presents. I know it’s our own fault… I’m just saying…

• I was once plucked from a gift shop on the Isle of Skye and whisked away for a photo-shoot with Vogue. They dressed me in clothes I could never afford to buy then asked me to herd sheep. The result was a single published shot with me standing out of focus in the background. Probably the best result all round.

• The first two hundred words of my new book, My Name’s Not Friday were written in a moment of blind panic during a Malorie Blackman workshop. I was on an Arvon foundation course and had 10 mins to write something that used any sense other than sight. The piece I wrote appears in the book pretty much the way it came out at the time.

• I was once smuggled into the House of Commons in the back of a minister’s car. I can’t say who or when but it was fun and much less dodgy than it sounds.

• When I was 12 years old, I made a deal with God to get out of a tight situation and it worked. I kept my side of the deal for 4 years before discovering God had been declared dead the previous century and so the contract was null and void - but the experience provided a lot of material for My Name’s Not Friday.

• I buy twice as many books as I can read. Sometimes I give the ones I don’t read to friends as presents. This is the only secret I have from my wife but I think she may suspect me.

• I own a football club. It only costs me £30 a year and I’m one of over a thousand owners. But I own a football club. That’s the important bit. I even have a badge to prove it. 

My Name's Not Friday is published by David Fickling Books

'This boy has bought me. This white boy who don't even look as old as I am. He owns me body and soul and my worth has been set at six hundred dollars.'

Summary

Samuel's an educated boy. Been taught by a priest. He was never supposed to be a slave.

He's a good boy too, thoughtful and kind. The type of boy who'd take the blame for something he didn't do if it meant he saved his brother. So now they don't call him Samuel. Not anymore. And the sound of guns is getting ever closer...

An extraordinary tale of endurance and hope, Jon Walter's second novel is a beautiful and moving story about the power of belief and the strength of the human spirit, set against the terrifying backdrop of the American Civil War. 

To find out more about Jon Walter:

Twitter

Jessica’s Ghost by Andrew Norriss

 

Francis needed to be alone.

He needed to be alone so that he could think, which was why, despite the weather, he carried his bag and his lunch to a bench on the far side o f the playing field.

Published by David Fickling Books in March 2015

Pages - 250

Francis has never had a friend like Jessica before. She's the first person he's ever met who can make him feel completely himself. Jessica has never had a friend like Francis before. Not just because he's someone to laugh with every day - but because he's the first person who has ever been able to see her ...

*****

This is one of those books, that you can tell that every word written has been carefully selected. There isn’t any extra waffle, just a beautifully crafted tale. Jessica’s Ghost deals with depression in children and it highlights the reasons it occurs and how it affects people. It’s like a dark cloud that descends and can either be lifted briefly or rains heavily for a very long time.  Each child in the story had thoughts about killing themselves. They felt the situations in their lives were so out of control, they could no longer deal with it. They wanted out of this life. It hurts to read that kids feel this way, but it isn’t uncommon at all.

Kids constantly struggle to fit in. They want to be liked by everyone and be considered the same. What this book shows you, is that it is alright to be different. The world would be a very boring place, if we were all the same. This story encourages children to accept who they are and learn to love themselves. The kids in this tale were soon left alone when they became confident and started believing in themselves. Life can change in a matter of minutes; what appears to be the worst thing ever can alter to bring you hope, happiness and joy.

This story also shows that talking to someone helps. If kids have worries, it is better to share it with someone than to keep it bottled up. Worries just build and build if you let them, until they are bursting out of you. As my grandmother used to say, ‘a worry shared is a worry halved’.

I loved this book completely. I loved all the characters and how they stood out from the crowd. They were each unique and it was wonderful to watch them learn to live with their uniqueness. They all blossomed as the story progressed.

This really is a beautiful book that deserves to be read by every child. I really hope when it is comes around to picking books for the 2015 Middle Grade  awards, that this book appears on every list. An  ideal gift  for any child you know that worries or frets over life.  A must-have  in every school library.

Where The Ideas Flow by Andrew Norriss

 

Today I am pleased to welcome author, Andrew Norriss onto the blog, to tell us about where his ideas flow.

I work in what, when the house was built, was the dining room. It suits me very well. A four second commute from the kitchen and there I am.

When I started writing, in the 1970’s, my desk had a pad of lined paper, a bic biro and a 1940’s portable typewriter. It’s a bit more hi-tech these days…

I used to need lots of books in my workplace - dictionaries, thesauruses, reference tomes, atlases, rules of grammar, books of quotations - but you don’t need any of those when you have the internet.

I still like having books around though. There are some serious friends on these shelves.

Like all writers’ rooms, mine is filled with things that remind me of people I’ve met, places I’ve been, things I’ve managed to do…

My wife made these cushions for me, in celebration of a couple of TV series.

This photograph hangs above the printer and is from the first TV show I ever wrote, with my friend Richard Fegen. It was a sitcom called Chance in a Million and Simon Callow and Brenda Blethyn played the leads. This was a still from the episode in the third series, where they got married.

The eagle came from the bonnet of a Lanchester that my father owned in the 1950’s. People often gave their cars names in those days, and he called it Aquila, which is Latin for ‘eagle’. I used the word as the title for my second book.

Occasionally, the business of writing feels a little over-cerebral, and messing about with a model boat gets me out of my head. This is H M Brig Supply. It took a year and a half to get this far. Still the yards and the rigging to go…

This picture sits above my desk and was bought several decades ago because it made me laugh. I’m not sure why. I don’t laugh at it these days. Mostly I find myself praying that someone knows where I’m supposed to be going…

Oh, and I’ve written a book. Jessica’s Ghost. My wife says it’s wonderful, and I would not dream of contradicting her.

Jessica’s Ghost is published by David Fickling Books in March 2015

Book Summary

Francis has never had a friend like Jessica before. She's the first person he's ever met who can make him feel completely himself. Jessica has never had a friend like Francis before. Not just because he's someone to laugh with every day - but because he's the first person who has ever been able to see her ...Jessica's Ghost is a funny, moving and beautiful book by a master storyteller, about the power of friendship to shine a warm light into dark places

To find out more about Andrew Norriss:

Website / Facebook

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson

This is the book I recommended for the Top Ten Books of 2015, which is posted on Tombola Times, the sponsors of ITV's Loose Women. Click here to read the rest of the list.
 

One afternoon, when I was eight years old, my class was told to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up.

To be published by David Fickling Books in January 2015

Pages - 368

Two boys. Two secrets.
David Piper has always been an outsider. His parents think he’s gay. The school bully thinks he’s a freak. Only his two best friends know the real truth - David wants to be a girl.
On the first day at his new school Leo Denton has one goal - to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in year eleven is definitely not part of that plan.
When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms. But things are about to get messy. Because at Eden Park School secrets have a funny habit of not staying secret for long…

******

This book had a rather topical subject to deal with and I can only say that the author did it with dignity and sensitivity, creating a cracking yet heartfelt story. This is the first transgender story I’ve ever read and I really hope it won’t be the last. If I am honest, I’m hoping for a time when transgender characters can be a norm in fiction rather than star as the story itself.  With diversification in YA surging forward, I really am excited to see what the future holds for YA.

I am definitely on the train that can’t wait to see everyone open their arms wide to accept that transgender people are just like everyone else and have exactly the same rights to happiness and acceptance in society. I am one of those people applauding Brad and Angelina Pitt as they support their child’s desire to be a boy. I really don’t think this book could have come out at a better time.

So back to the story itself. I found it completely  gripping from the very start. You cannot help but want to hug and comfort David as he struggles with his ever changing body, developing into the man he doesn’t want to be. He is one of the lucky ones though, as his parents are quite liberal and open to his choices, which becomes apparent as the story unfolds. I adored the growing friendship between Leo and David, as they learnt to trust in each other. Leo came across as a wise and protective brother figure, as he helped David to adjust.  Friendships like that are to be embraced and worn with pride.

The book is told from a dual perspective and both characters tell their story in first person. It was fascinating to see the different lifestyles of both characters and how their surroundings and the people close to them affected their decisions and their mind-set.

There is humour, there is sadness, but they are weaved so beautifully that you are never down for long in the story. The ending would have made John Hughes proud and I bet if he was around, he would be desperate to make this book into a film. I swear I could hear the music playing at one point during the final chapters.

I think this book will be talked about widely within the YA market. It will be the transgender book on everyone’s lips. There will be other books to follow, of that I am certain; but in my mind, this will be the book that heralded the change in people’s perception of transgender children. I can’t wait to see teenagers reading this and loving it as much as I did.  A huge congratulations to Lisa Williamson for writing such an amazing book and not forgetting,  a round of applause to David Fickling Books for bringing this story into the world.

 

Close To The Wind by Jon Walter

The boy and the old man arrived at the port at night.

There had been cloud in the sky but now the moon shone brightly and they stood in the shadow cast by a row of terraced cottages that lined a cobbled street, polished through the years by wheels and feet and the hooves of horses.

The boy held the old man’s hand.

Published by David Fickling Books in July  2014

Pages - 298

Malik's mother has been missing for days, his home has become unrecognisable, and his grandfather is insisting that they leave on the next and final ship: The Samaritan. This journey will take them to a country which promises safety and a new life. The only problem is, they don't have a ticket, and people are stopping at nothing to get a place on board. Luckily Papa has a secret that could change everything. But who can they trust to help them?

******

One of the things that I liked most about this book was the fact that it was difficult to pinpoint a time or place in which the events took place. I knew that Malik was fleeing from a war torn country and I had suspicions that the story was set during during World War 2, but this information was never disclosed, giving the book a timeless feel to it. It really could have been set at any time as nothing felt like it dated it.This alone shows the skills of a clever author.

Nothing overly dramatic really happens in this book and yet, you are sucked into the story straightaway. The author’s voice captures your imagination and writes in such a detailed manner, that you find it difficult to pull yourself away from the book. You desperately want Malik to be able to return to his home and be with his mother again.

If I was to pinpoint any themes in this book, I think they would be loyalty and survival. Malik is willing to give away one of his most treasured positions to right the wrong that was committed against his grandfather. Oksar and Stephan’s loyalty, showed that they would rather risk losing the opportunity of living with a new family than losing each other. From a survival perspective, Malik’s grandfather is willing to risk his own life in order to spare his grandson from the unknown and unstable future of his country.

There were scenes in the book that worried me. I was convinced for a huge part of the story that I would have to go through that whole Manchee scenario again that I struggled with in The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. There were tense moments where Malik had to show true courage and maturity for such a young child. The atmosphere on the ship was so well written, I could feel how stifling conditions must have been.

I do have one niggle about the book. The ending seemed to go on longer than necessary for me. Once Malik was off the boat, I expected perhaps another incident to occur, only it didn’t. So I find myself pondering whether the majority of Part Three was actually necessary.

However, this did not affect my overall enjoyment of the book. The descriptive language and the young hero made this book a beautiful read.

Such Wicked Intent by Kenneth Oppel

Published by David Fickling Books in August 2012

Pages - 373

Book kindly sent by publisher for an honest review.

The books flew open like startled brids trying to escape the flames. One after the other I savagely hurled them into the hottest part of the bonfire, watching them ignite almost before they landed.

Goodreads Summary

When does obsession become madness? Tragedy has forced sixteen-year-old Victor Frankenstein to swear off alchemy forever. He burns the Dark Library. He vows he will never dabble in the dark sciences again—just as he vows he will no longer covet Elizabeth, his brother’s betrothed.

     If only these things were not so tempting.

     When he and Elizabeth discover a portal into the spirit world, they cannot resist. Together with Victor’s twin, Konrad, and their friend Henry, the four venture into a place of infinite possibilities where power and passion reign. But as they search for the knowledge to raise the dead, they unknowingly unlock a darkness from which they may never return.

******

This is the second prequel to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the first book being This Dark Endeavour  which deals with the strong and yet difficult relationship between Victor and his twin brother, complicated by their friendship with Elizabeth. Such Wicked Intent  continues  the story after the death of Konrad and it is much darker and deeper than the first.  I  think the author has done an outstanding job in creating the early years of Victor Frankenstein, allowing you to easily visualise how he came to create  Frankenstein in the first place. I really hope there are a few more books in this series to fill in the gaps because reading them is like drinking a very expensive and richly flavoured bottle of wine - the words are like velvet smoothly lifting off the page and settling comfortably  into your mind.  I was extremely impressed by the masterful plot and the well paced rhythm of the story making it difficult to put the book down. 

When you begin reading this series, you get such a sense of uneasiness in your stomach, as you know that the events that take place are unlikely to be pleasant. If you have a weak stomach, you may not quite be ready for such a disturbing yet compelling story. 

The author's depiction of the after life was intriguing - it is the first time I have ever read it written in such a way where our souls appear to stay in our original dwellings only on an alternate plane, invisible to the living. The whirling mist, a character in itself, swirls around the house in a frightening manner,   appearing ominous at first  but as the story develops you get a clearer picture of what it actually is.  The black butterflies are a completely ingenious addition to the plot!

The relationship between Victor and Elizabeth takes an interesting turn in this book. To an extent I found their relationship uneasy and also unhealthy at times as Victor spirals down onto the brink of madness.  Elizabeth is quite a fiesty character and definitely her own woman as she strides ahead of the boys to get what she wants. In this book, she embraces her darker side and you will be surprised by the actions she take.  There is a strong sense of lust rather than love between them and I cannot help but feel they will be the downfall of each other, which I believe happens to be the case.  I am only vaguely aware of the story in Frankenstein as I have never read it. If there are to be no more books in this series, it will definitely be a must for future reading. 

This book closely examines unhealthy obsessions and you watch breathlessly as Victor takes steps too far into the underworld, as grief engulfs him every waking moment. He has lost control and you are desperate for him to regain his sensibility. 

This book is extremely well written and very atmospheric.  Not one to be read in the dark alone. I think the author has captured the tone and feel of Frankenstein with ease and yet given it his own original touch of Gothic charm. If you are looking for a book to see you through the dark hours of Halloween, then this is one I would definitely recommend. 

Setting The Scene with John Dickinson

Today on Setting The Scene I have John Dickinson, the fabulous author of Muddle and Win which is published tomorrow by David Fickling Books, an imprint of Random House Children's Books. 

Right. There are no pictures, so you’ll have to imagine this.

(Which is, after all, the point.)

Our hero is a little devil down in Hell. His name is Muddlespot. He gets sent up to enter the mind of a girl called Sally Jones. Sally is the sort of person who is top of her class, always does her homework, keeps her room tidy, helps her mother, helps everyone and is liked by everybody. Muddlespot has to persuade her to be different.

But Sally is no sap. Muddlespot finds his job harder than he thought possible. And when - finally - he starts to make some headway with her, a heavyweight hero-angel called Windleberry gets sent down from Heaven to oppose him. The story is about how the three of them get along together. And the places in it are Heaven, Hell and the Human Mind.

You’ll see why I haven’t any holiday snaps to show you.

A lot of people think of Heaven as a city - a Jerusalem in the sky. Down in Hell there seems to be a city too, called Pandemonium. (At least, according to Milton there is, and what’s good enough for Milton is good enough for me.)

As for the human mind - well, we know that inside Sally’s mind there’s going to be Muddlespot and Windleberry and, OK, Sally herself, all arguing with each other about what Sally is going to do - eat that muffin or not, for example. They live in it, as if it were a house. They look out at the world through Sally’s eyes. This sort of idea comes up regularly in slapstick cartoons and comic strips.

Milton with slapstick. That’s where I wanted the story to be. And in this case the common link between Heaven, Hell and the Human Mind was going to be architecture.

Let’s imagine Heaven as a city, then. What would this city be like? Think of all the most wonderful building humans have ever made - the Taj Mahal, Versailles, Windsor Castle, and the latest prestige skyscraper going up in the City with fountains and fruit orchards in the foyer. Now exaggerate everything, in all directions. Think of lightness and air. Imagine walls and towers that look down from impossible heights onto the world below. Vast halls and chambers through which the angels bustle on business they think is very important. There would be music, all the time. How are orders passed from angel to angel? In harmony, of course. Thrones would be made of rose-petals. Tables of polished rainwater…

‘Polished rainwater?’ said one of my editors. ‘I can’t imagine it!’ Try a little harder.

Hell next. It’s got to be pretty heat-proof for one thing, so let’s make it out of brass. Nice and shiny, with ominous stains here and there due to the habitual pastimes of the inhabitants. It’s got to feel threatening too. There should be lots of spikes everywhere, like in Prague or some city out of the Arabian Nights. You’ve got to feel those buildings looming over you, unseen eyes watching you.

There need to be shadows. Doors gape like mouths to swallow you (so decorate them with teeth). Carvings writhe along the buidings, showing the sort of scenes that when you look at them closely you really wish you hadn’t…

‘Down’ should be an important concept here. In a normal city, and probably also in Heaven, the bigger the cheese you are, the higher up the hill you live. In Hell it’s got to be the other way around. The big guys live at the bottom. I’ve been to only one city where the same is true, and that’s La Paz in Bolivia, which is built on a mountainside at high altitude, so that it’s definitely more comfortable to live lower down the slope. My Pandemonium is not consciously based on La Paz, but it’s possible that the memory of that curious, upside-down city lingered with me as I began to describe the place where Muddlespot was born.

(That’s not ‘born’ as we understand it, of course. I don’t think Hell runs to maternity wards.)

As for the human mind. This is harder. But we know that brains are massively complicated things, so we’re going to have to imagine quite a lot of it. If they’re like houses, then there’d be room after room after room, corridor after corridor, stairs, galleries… Where do all the facts live? All that French Grammar that we’re so good at? Where do all the ideas come from? The nightmares? What do we do with thoughts we don’t want to think? There must be a dark dungeon somewhere, with cages where suppressed thoughts howl in frustration, sending their voices echoing distantly down the corridors of our mind.

The inner architecture must express the outer personality. Sally’s mind would be ordered, light, calm, geometric, symmetric and very clear. A lot of it would be made of translucent crystal. Other bits would look like the naves of cathedrals…

Woah! Woah-woah-woah! Light? Crystal? Cathedrals… Isn’t this all sounding a bit like the way we imagined Heaven? Maybe it is. So are we running out of ideas, beginning to repeat ourselves? Tremble, writer.

But maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s right that her mind should be a bit like our Heaven. It just shows how much ground our poor hero, poor bewildered Muddlespot, has to make up. (When we get into the mind of Sally’s sister, by contrast, it can be a darker, more chaotic place where a solitary guardian angel works desperately in a seedy office by the light of an anglepoise lamp. Contrasts are useful like that. They can make a point better than any superlative.)

And of course, whichever mind you’re in, there has to be a way that leads to Heaven. And one that goes to the other place. As if to say (without of course actually saying it) that Heaven and Hell are both in the mind.

That too is the point.

Maybe.

To find out more about John Dickinson: 

Website: http://www.john-dickinson.net/index.html

Inspire Me with Conrad Mason - The Demon's Watch

When The Demon's Watch arrived in the post, I was quite taken by the blurb on the back, so I hassled the lovely Lauren at RHCB to find out what inspired Conrad to write the book. Lauren as always came to my assistance and here I have a lovely post by Conrad Mason, author of The Demon's Watch.

Thank you for having me on your blog Viv!

You've asked me to talk about the inspiration behind my book The Demon's Watch. So first we need to go back to me as an 8-year-old, reading my first Redwall book. I think it was Salamandastron, which had the most incredibly exciting cover I'd ever seen... A badger in golden armour, carrying a spear.

I tore through all the Redwall books. I read them again. I listened to the cassette versions. The death of a character in Martin the Warrior left me in tears all day, and I'm not sure any book has floored me in quite the same way since. In fact, I'm not sure I would have become a writer if not for Brian Jacques.

(If you don't know Redwall, by the way, think Wind in the Willows meets Lord of the Rings. Did that help? No?)

But there was something which bothered me about these books. In the world of Redwall, some animals were good (mice, squirrels, hares...) and some were bad (foxes, weasels, ferrets...). I never really understood what it was that made a fox bad. Or a weasel, or a ferret. It didn't seem fair.

When I was a little older, I read Tolkein and found something similar. Elves were good. Dwarves were good. Goblins were bad. (I'm oversimplifying here - but that's how it seemed to me at the time.) That was the first idea which led toThe Demon's Watch. Why did a goblin have to be bad? And what would happen if you wrote a fantasy story about a good goblin?

I used to think about this sort of thing a lot during the summer holidays, when my family would often go to stay in Cornwall. We spent our days on the beach, and on clifftop walks. My dad and I went out sailing in dinghies. I've always loved the sea, and I became more and more interested in the maritime history of Cornwall - creaking wooden sailing ships, revenue men, smugglers... I began to think it would be fun to write a story set in an 18th century port.

Over the years, these two ideas got jumbled up in my mind. On the one hand, a story about a good goblin, with elves, trolls and magic. On the other hand, a story of galleons, pirates and cutlasses.

What was to stop them being the same story?

One day, I sat down and wrote a short scene. It was about a ship coming into a port at night, during a storm. A smuggler's ship, crewed by humans, trolls and goblins. There was a cargo on board which would make their fortune - a mysterious object wrapped up in black velvet.

I wanted to find out what happened next. So I kept writing. And three years later, I'm beyond excited to see The Demon's Watch in print at last.

So what happens if you write a fantasy story about a good goblin? You'll have to read it to find out...

Now I know you are desperate to know more. So here is the trailer for the book.

To find out more about Conrad Mason:


Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Conrad-Mason/223839267667185?sk=wall
Twitter: @conradwrites