Inspire Me with Helen Peters

Now this is definitely my last post for a while. So I really hope you enjoy it. I'm so pleased to welcome Helen Peters onto the blog, to tell us all about the things that inspired her to write, Evie's Ghost. 

Ever since I was a child, I’ve loved visiting historic houses and imagining what life must have been like for the people who used to live and work in them. The idea for Evie’s Ghost came to me when I visited Osterley Park, an extremely grand house now owned by the National Trust. Another visitor asked the guide if the original family who lived there had had any children. The guide said they had just one daughter, who was expected to marry very well, but who eloped at seventeen with an ‘unsuitable’ man and broke her father’s heart. 

I thought what a strange life that girl must have led, as an only child in this enormous palace. I wondered whether she was lonely. And then I thought, what if a modern girl, also an only child, came to stay in that house now? And what if the twenty-first century character somehow found a way back to the house as it was in the eighteenth century, so that the two girls could meet?

One of my favourite books is Tom’s Midnight Garden. I love the premise of the boy being torn away from his own happy home and being sent to stay with his aunt and uncle in an old house that’s been converted into flats, the once-beautiful garden now concreted over. The way the house transforms at midnight, Tom’s discovery of the garden that only exists at night, and his friendship with an equally lonely girl in the past are completely magical. The book cast a spell on me and was a major source of inspiration for Evie’s Ghost.

In early drafts of Evie’s Ghost, Evie was invisible to everyone in the past except her two friends, as Tom in Tom’s Midnight Garden is invisible to everyone but Hattie. But my editor suggested that it would give the story more drama and tension if Evie were not only visible but made to work as a servant. This idea appealed to me, as I have always been fascinated by stories of servants’ lives. When I was thirteen, I read and loved One Pair of Hands, Monica Dickens’s account of how, bored witless in the debutante world of the 1930s, she shocked her family by going out to work as a cook-housekeeper. Her account of her transition from Upstairs to Downstairs is hilarious, but also a real eye-opener about the hard work of servant life before central heating and vacuum cleaners were invented. 

I had a personal reason, too, for being interested in the upstairs/downstairs dynamic. My father’s parents both came from wealthy families who employed servants, whereas my mother’s parents both came from poor families and went out to work as servants. My granddad became a gardener’s boy when he was thirteen and my grandmother went away to work as a housemaid at fourteen. I remember her telling me how horrible her employer was and how she was desperately homesick for her happy, loving family, and especially for her mother, whom she adored. In Evie’s Ghost, Evie has to work as a housemaid and the friend she makes in the past, Robbie, is a gardener’s boy. I thought about my grandparents a lot as I researched and wrote the book.

Helen's granny, when she was a Girl Guide leader after she left service and came back to work in the village. 

Helen's grandfather and his triplet brothers, aged around 15 around 1920.

Evie’s journey into the past begins when she spots words scratched into the window of the spare bedroom where she has to sleep in her godmother’s house. Her godmother tells Evie the story of Sophia Fane, who lived there two hundred years earlier and was allegedly locked up in that room for the rest of her life as punishment for a failed elopement. Evie journeys back into the past to try to help Sophia avoid her terrible fate. This part of the story was directly inspired by a similar tale I read about Hetty Walwyn, who lived at Hellens Manor in Herefordshire in the eighteenth century. Hetty Walwyn eloped with a man her family considered unsuitable, and was locked up for the rest of her life. During her long imprisonment, she used her diamond ring to scratch words onto the windowpane, which can still be read today: “It is a part of virtue to abstain from what we love if it will prove our bane.” I found this story incredibly sad, and the fact that Hetty’s writing still exists hundreds of years after her death, as the only tangible evidence of her life, felt very powerful to me.

All these stories and people inspired me and kept me going during the several years and many drafts that it took to weave the threads together into the story of Evie’s Ghost.

Summary

Evie couldn’t be angrier with her mother. She’s only gone and got married again and has flown off on honeymoon, sending Evie to stay with a godmother she’s never even met in an old, creaky house in the middle of nowhere. It is all monumentally unfair.

But on the first night, Evie sees a strange, ghostly figure at the window. Spooked, she flees from the room, feeling oddly disembodied as she does so.

Out in the corridor, it’s 1814 and Evie finds herself dressed as a housemaid. She’s certain she’s gone back in time for a reason. A terrible injustice needs to be fixed. But there’s a housekeeper barking orders, a bad-tempered master to avoid, and the chamber pots won’t empty themselves. It’s going to take all Evie’s cunning to fix things in the past so that nothing will break apart in the future…

To find out more about Helen Peters: 

Twitter

Murder in Midwinter by Fleur Hitchcock

The bus stops for the millionth time and I look down at my phone for the millionth time. 

A little envelope appears in the corner of the screen., I click on it. 

It's from my sister, Zahra.

What you gonna wear to the party? 

Published by Nosy Crow in October 2016

Pages - 256

Summary

Sat on the top of a bus days before Christmas, Maya sees a couple arguing violently in the middle of a crowded Regent Street. They see her watching, she looks away, and the woman disappears. Maya goes to the police, who shrug and send her away. Then a body turns up… Now convinced she is a vital witness to a crime, the police send Maya into hiding in rural Wales. She resolves to get to the bottom of the mystery. Then the snow comes and no one can get out. But what if someone can still get in?

****

This is a perfect book for the season. Bring on the snow! Fleur Hitchcock has made me desperate for it, with this wintery, murder mystery. 

The book is aimed at the Middle Grade market, but it had an older feel to it. I would suggest that it would easily suit the younger YA crowd as well as Middle Grade. 

Maya is a fantastic main character. I think she is from mixed heritage, but it isn't really mentioned and I'm only guessing because of the names of the family members and the unusual white streak in her hair. She is courageous and bold, with a fantastic hobby. Maya likes to assemble and disassemble motor bikes. What an excellent role model she is.  She has a strong bond with her sister and will do anything to protect her. 

 I was thrown straight into the story from the first chapter and found myself quickly turning the page to find out what happened next. The plot takes us from the bustling streets  of London to the silent and lonely valleys of Wales. Maya doesn't really feel any safer there and can't wait to get back home. It doesn't help that her cousin, Ollie is so horrible to her. 

The plot keeps us on our toes through out the book and leaves you with an unexpected ending. Some of the final scenes had me gripping the edge of the seat. Especially all the scenes involving the horses. Any animal scene is guaranteed to break my heart. 

For those who love a fast paced, thrillingly tense Middle Grade read, this is the book for you. Definitely one for the Christmas stocking. 

Setting the Scene with Fleur Hitchcock

I'm so pleased to welcome Middle Grade author, Fleur Hitchcock onto the blog today, to tell us all about the settings in her latest book, Murder in Midwinter, which was recently published by Nosy Crow. Keep a look out for a review of the book, coming very soon!

Setting the scene...

At the heart of Murder in Midwinter, is Maya, a London girl, a girl who knows and walks the streets just south of the river, around the Southbank and Borough and just to the east of Waterloo. It’s an area I know well, my niece, Ruby, and her family live there - here’s a lino cut Ruby did of the block of Corporation of London flats that they live in. 

I didn’t actually use these flats, not completely, because I wanted Maya’s family to live over the plumbing supplies shop that they run. That was an amalgamation of a decorator’s shop near Southwark street and Pimlico Plumbers who have a huge sign on the railway line as you approach Waterloo station. 

But what I really used was the Thames, at night in the winter. It’s stunning, all purple and green lights, monumental architecture and silhouettes and reflections - and at one point Maya and her sister Zahra are sitting watching the streams of tourists passing the Globe theatre and Zahra says: “God. London’s beautiful.” She’s speaking for me at that point, because I love to sit on those Thames side benches in the twilight just looking. 

And when Maya needs to flee, I had to find somewhere that was the absolute opposite. Somewhere with no lights, no architecture, nothing. 

A snowy mountain in Wales. 

I have to confess that although I’ve lived in Wales, I’ve never lived in the mountains, I’ve only visited them in the winter, not in the snow, but I have lived in the countryside most of my life and a couple of years back we had some very severe winters, so I used what I remembered of those.

And finally there were the horses. I was a horse kid, but never a very able horse kid, but I do remember one particular pony, black, mean, standing in the snow, biting my best friend on the bum. I used that pony. 100%.

Is that a setting?

I think so. 

Sadly, I have no photos of him. I never thought I’d need it. 

Summary

Sat on the top of a bus days before Christmas, Maya sees a couple arguing violently in the middle of a crowded Regent Street. They see her watching, she looks away, and the woman disappears. Maya goes to the police, who shrug and send her away. Then a body turns up… Now convinced she is a vital witness to a crime, the police send Maya into hiding in rural Wales. She resolves to get to the bottom of the mystery. Then the snow comes and no one can get out. But what if someone can still get in?

Published by Nosy Crow in October 2017

To find out more about Fleur Hitchcock:

Twitter / Website

Secret Serendipity Seven with Elizabeth Dale

Today I'm pleased to welcome children's author and SCBWI pal, Elizabeth Dale, onto the blog, to share seven secrets with us. Yesterday on the blog, her latest picture book, Nothing Can Frighten A Bear was reviewed by Liss Norton. 

We all love secrets, don’t we? Some we don’t mind sharing, some we’re a bit tentative about. Should I tell you my 7th one? Read it and see!

1. I originally started writing children’s books because they are short. Honestly! My first ever writing attempt was a long adult novel. It was typed on a portable typewriter with keys that stuck if I typed too fast, edits could mean re-typing whole pages or chapters - and no-one wanted to publish it. After all those endless late nights hammering away on my ancient machine, I vowed that never again would I spend so long on something that might never be published. So I wrote magazine stories, which were wonderfully short. And then when my daughters were born, and I was reminded how wonderful children’s books are, I started writing them, too. Firstly because they were short, but then because I fell in love with them. Writing for children is the most fun of all. Indeed, my daughters were so impressed by what a blissful life I lead - sitting with my feet up, drinking coffee, gazing out the window - sorry, writing! - that two of them, Katie Dale (Little White Lies, Mumnesia, Fairy Tale Twists etc) and Jenny Jinks (A Treasury of Bedtime Stories) are children’s authors, too.

2. My latest picture book Nothing Can Frighten a Bear was inspired by a trip to Canada where I went for walks in the woods looking for bears. But I am really, really pleased to say we never found one! I would have been scared silly. My daughter thought she saw one and our screams of terror were deafening (even though it turned out to be only a squirrel!). So whilst it’s true that Nothing Can Frighten a Bear, there is a lot that can terrify this human!

3. I’m useless at baking cakes. My picture book The Carrot Cake Catastrophe is about a girl rabbit and her granddad making a birthday cake for her mummy that goes disastrously wrong. It was written from experience. I shall never forget the day I was baking with my daughters and egg whites were mistaken for peach juice! The Carrot Cake Catastrophe has a recipe in the back for a yummy carrot cake, which my editor provided and tested out. Not me. I didn’t want my own carrot cake catastrophe!

4. I often get car sick. My picture book Off to Market - about a trip on an African minibus to a market, was based on a real journey I took in Uganda. There was everything on that minibus: goats, rugs, hens, and lots of people. It was hot, jam-packed and full of very interesting smells. Fortunately, despite these and the bends and very bumpy roads, I didn’t feel sick. Which is just as well as I’d never have been able to push my way off that crowded bus in time!

5. I’m allergic to dogs, cats, horses, and anything furry. The first picture book I ever had published, Scrumpy, is about a dog that died and is based on a dog of that name we all fell in love with one holiday. I wrote it because my daughter’s hamster died and I saw the devastating effect that had on her, and I wanted to write a positive story about moving on after the death of a pet. But I’ve never had a dog. My children would have loved one, but they couldn’t because of my allergies. I have had courses of de-sensitising injections but they didn’t work, so the only dogs in my house are in books.

6. Not many people know that I am writing a musical - working title Always a Rainbow with my daughter, Katie, and the lovely Helen Bonney who is a musical genius. It is based on the life of Janusz Korczak who ran an orphanage for Jewish children in Poland in the Second World War, and refused to leave them no matter what. It’s funny, sad, heart-rending but hopefully uplifting too - and filled with beautiful songs.

7. I do not have an agent. I have had over forty books accepted, due to dogged persistence, learning from feedback and never giving up over the years. Which leads to an extra 8th secret. I am the Rejection Queen. I am used to rejection, I expect rejection, I can take it. It’s hard sometimes, especially when I’m on the verge of acceptance and it falls through, but I have learned that every rejection is an opportunity - to send that text out to someone else. So for all fellow writers reading this, I would say - Never Give Up! Embrace rejection, it comes to us all (well most of us!) and when an acceptance finally happens, past rejections make it even sweeter.

There… should I have revealed that I get rejected a lot? Hardly makes me look like a mega-successful author, does it? But all you writers or would-be writers out there suffering or fearing rejection need to know -you are not alone! It’s healthy. It’s normal. It’s part of being a writer. But despite them all, being a writer, especially for children, is still the best job in the world!

Nothing Can Frighten A Bear is published by Nosy Crow. To read a review, click here. 

Summary

Snuggled up in bed one moonlight night, Baby Bear is sure he hears a monster outside. Daddy Bear insists there’s nothing scary in the forest and, anyway, nothing can frighten a bear. But as the family of bears set out to make sure, and all vanish one by one, it looks like Daddy Bear might not be as brave as he seems… 

This bedtime story is full of comic surprises and gentle reassurance. After all, the things that go bump in the night are never as scary as you might think!

***

If you want to know more about Elizabeth Dale and her books, please visit her website - http://elizabethdaleuk.blogspot.co.uk/

Or contact her on [email protected] 

Nothing Can Frighten a Bear by Elizabeth Dale and Paula Metcalf

Deep, deep in the woods, with the moon shining bright, 

Some bears snuggled up in their beds for the night. 

There was Mummy Bear, Daddy Bear… 

Grace and then Ben… 

And Baby Bear, too, who lay dreaming, but then… 

As Baby Bear wriggled and stretched out a paw, 

He suddenly woke when he heard a loud… 

roar! 

Summary From Nosy Crow 

This September we’re publishing a wonderful picture book by a brand new author-illustrator pairing: Nothing Can Frighten a Bear, written by Elizabeth Dale and illustrated by Paula Metcalf. This is an absolutely FANTASTIC book: beautifully illustrated, with an incredible rhyming text, and a gentle, reassuring message that’s perfect for young children. 

Snuggled up in bed one moonlight night, Baby Bear is sure he hears a monster outside. Daddy Bear insists there’s nothing scary in the forest and, anyway, nothing can frighten a bear. But as the family of bears set out to make sure, and all vanish one by one, it looks like Daddy Bear might not be as brave as he seems… 

This bedtime story is full of comic surprises and gentle reassurance. After all, the things that go bump in the night are never as scary as you might think! 

****

Review by Liss Norton 

Nothing Can Frighten a Bear is going straight on to my 'Best Books of the Year' list. It's a hilarious story about a bear family going out in the night to investigate a scary roar. Daddy Bear's certain it can't be a monster because monsters don't exist but he starts to have doubts as his family begin to disappear. Of course, there's a happy ending, but I'm not giving it away! 

Elizabeth Dale's rhyming text is perfect - good rhythm and a terrific use of language - and sometimes the last word of each rhyming couplet appears on the next page so the reader has a chance to guess what it is before turning over. I read the book to Theo, aged six, and he loved guessing. (He was right every time.) He and I giggled all the way through the book; it's clearly going to become a favourite - for both of us! 

Paula Metcalf's beautiful illustrations match the text brilliantly. There's lots of detail to talk about in the pictures, but Theo and I didn't stop to chat, we kept reading to the end because we were so eager to find out what would happen. Later he said that his favourite page was the one where the 'monster' appeared because he knew what it was, but silly Daddy Bear didn't. 

I urge you not to miss this book because it's totally fab! And if anyone from Nosy Crow is reading this review, please let's have more from Elizabeth Dale and Paula Metcalf. What a duo!

The Book Cycle with S.C. Ransom

Today on the blog, I am pleased to welcome UKYA author, S.C. Ransom onto the blog to talk about her book cycle. S.C. Ransom is the author of the fantastic Small Blue Thing trilogy. Her latest book is called The Beneath. 

When it comes to writing my books I’m firmly in the planning camp. I jot down ideas all the time, and then find I’ll be coming back to one more than the others. I’ll start jotting down notes on how the story could work, and generally I then sketch the story out longhand in one of my many notebooks. If it still looks as if it might be a goer (and plenty fall over at that point), I’ll start to draft out a chapter plan. I really like having a chapter plan - it gives me structure and signposts, even if I then end up ignoring half of it. Usually, though, the beginning and the end will be written down, and won’t change much. 

When I was writing The Beneath I toyed with the idea of making it a trilogy, and mapped out the whole thing with colour-coded post-it notes. It was really useful in being able to restructure and see if the bits with the other characters were reasonably spaced or not. In the end though we decided to make it a standalone book, so all that plot got viciously pared down.

I’ve never been taught how to write a novel, so I just go by instinct - my plan allows me to make sure I have something exciting to grip the readers in the first chapter, then character development. There need to be big events in each third of the book, and I like to try to leave each chapter at a point which will make people want to carry on reading (even if it is bedtime!).  

When I’m thinking about my characters, I usually only have a rough idea about them when I start, and we tend to discover each other as the book develops. If I’m being organised I’ll keep notes in separate file on nuances for each character, but usually I’m not, so I can find that I’m contradicting myself a few chapters further on. It drives my editor mad!

One piece of advice I was given when I was revising the original draft of Small Blue Thing for publication was that, if you’ve invented a world, make sure you make a list of the rules, and make sure everything follows them. This was really helpful, especially when writing a trilogy. In those books, the heroine, Alex, finds a bracelet which allows her to communicate with drowned souls. To make the whole thing believable, the method of that communication and how the dead behave had to be consistent.  I wrote a long list and found that I returned to it frequently.

So once I have my chapter plan, an idea of my cast and the world in which they live, I start to write. Usually I start at the beginning, but the beauty of having a chapter plan means that I don’t have to. I generally have about 20-25 chapters, each of 2,500-3,000 words - up to about ten pages. Something exciting or revealing has to happen in each chapter. I try and write this first draft as quickly as I can, without getting too sidetracked into details and research. The internet is a terrible distraction to writing time, so I tend to leave my self notes in the text -‘more stuff about X in here’. 

Once I’ve written a draft I print it out and put it in a folder. It makes it seem much more real to me to have it in a form I can actually hold. Then I’ll read it through and revise it in pencil, writing great wodges of stuff in the margins which I struggle to read back later as I type it in. A new draft gets a new subfolder on my computer. I keep all drafts - electronic and physical, and I’m running out of space.  I just love to see the evolution of the story. Depending on when the publisher wants to see it, I might send an early draft or one which has been through a few more revisions. At this point I can go a bit wild with the different types of post-it.

the editor then gets back to me with comments. The first pass will be the big stuff, and I probably won’t get a file back from them but just a long email with thoughts. I then do another draft, possibly two, before we start on the actual editing. She’ll send me one enormous file, usually covered in red revisions, which can be a bit daunting. The annoying thing about editors, though, is that they are almost always right, and however much I might rant at the proposed changes, I usually make them. 

There are various levels of edit, and after each major one I’ll print out another version to see how it reads. The Beneath has six or seven files of different drafts, and it’s lovely to line them up on the shelf behind the finished copies.

Thank you, Sue, for telling us all about your writing process. I am impressed by all those printed drafts!

Summary 

It’s an ordinary school day, but Lily is about to step into a nightmare. The girl rushing out of the Tube tunnel tells a crazy story about an underground community and a charismatic leader with an evil plan. How can Lily trust her? It’s only when Lily finds herself in the labyrinth beneath London that she learns the horrific truth - about the Farmer, the Crop and about herself.

Published by Nosy Crow in March 2015

To find out more about S.C. Ransom:

Website / Facebook / Twitter / Blog

Secret Serendipity Seven with Paula Harrison

Today I am pleased to welcome author, Paula Harrison on to the blog to tell us seven secrets! Paula’s new book, Red Moon Rising, the first in a new series, will be published this April by Nosy Crow.

1. The inspiration for Red Moon Rising came to me during a mealtime with my family. I had to get up and run out of the kitchen to find a pencil and paper before the idea seeped away. When I came back, my pudding was gone. My family had decided I obviously wasn’t hungry!
 

2. I’ve always been drawn to stories which portray a layer of reality that’s imperceptible to most people. In Red Moon Rising, there’s a group of faeries living secretly among humans. They look exactly the same as anyone else in their human form, but they have eyes with golden rings around the pupils which are only visible to others of their kind.
 

3. The faerie ring - which can drag you into the Otherworld - is based on the ring in the community orchard near my house.
 

4. The faerie population is divided into tribes with inherited powers over water (Mists), plants (Thorns), animals (Greytails), air (Kestrels) or fire (Blaze). As well as different powers, the tribes have their own distinct ways and attitudes. The Thorns, with their power over plants, tend to be very traditional. They dislike change and are suspicious of newcomers. The Greytails, with their power over animals, are generally streetwise and mix more easily with humans.

Laney, the main character, is a Mist. Her tribe are often difficult to pin down and Laney finds answers about her heritage hard to come by.
 

5. If I’m a bit bored while sitting on a bus or waiting in a queue, I watch other people and try to decide what tribe they’d belong to. The idea behind the storyline began with the thought that we live in a world where people still behave in a tribal way. Many people feel the need to belong to a group, whether that’s the community they live in or the football team they support. People find comfort in belonging but at the same time it can lead to terrible behaviour towards others outside their group.
 

6. The red moon is seen as a bad omen by many of the characters. Its appearance triggers a chain of events at the start of the book. In real life, red-coloured moons are often seen during a lunar eclipse. The next one of these will be on the 4th of April but unfortunately it won’t be visible from the UK.
 

7. Late one night, I wrote the scene where Laney is trapped in a churchyard with a character called the Shadow. Then, having thoroughly spooked myself, I had to check all the windows and doors were locked before I went to bed. I’ve decided to write those kinds of scenes in daylight next time!

Summary of Book

Laney thinks the summer’s going to be boring but how wrong she is! From the moment she sees a blood-red moon, things take a turn for the magical. For Laney is a faerie, a member of the Mist Tribe, and things are about to get exciting, and mysterious, and dangerous. Laney and her faerie friends must stop an evil Shadow Faerie finding the magical objects he needs to become all-powerful. Each book deals with the quest for a different object.
To find out more about Paula Harrison:
Twitter/Website

The Black Crow Conspiracy by Christopher Edge

Fog clung to the Tower, a cloaking mist that shrouded the fortress in a grey-white gloom, its battlements and turrets ghostly silhouettes against the sky. Beyond the bulwarks and the ramparts, the Thames lapped at the wharf that lay beneath the ancient keep. The distant creaking of ships at St Katharine Docks and the clatter of their cargo were the only sounds that could be heard as dusk gave way to darkness. Even the guttural croaks of the ravens guarding the Tower had by now fallen silent.

Published by Black Crow in 2014

269 pages in paperback edition

Summary from Nosy Crow

It’s 1902. London is looking forward to the new King’s coronation and ignoring the threat of war from across the sea…

Penelope Tredwell, the pen behind bestselling author, Montgomery Flinch, is cursed with writer’s block. She needs a sensational new story or her magazine, The Penny Dreadful, will go under. So when a mysterious letter arrives, confessing to an impossible crime, Penny thinks she has found a plot to enthrall her readers: the theft of the Crown Jewels by the diabolical Black Crow.

Ghostly apparitions, kidnap and treason - this is the stuff of great stories. But what if it’s all true?

*****

Reviewed by K. M. Lockwood

The cover artwork by Eric Orchard reflects the tone of this 1902 set adventure story. There’s a spooky atmosphere with dark hues and period detail, but also plenty to engage the contemporary reader.

We are given a likeable, inventive and patient heroine in the writer Penelope Tredwell who keeps her cool through a sequence of exciting predicaments. There’s an appealing array of early 20th century historical events given a rather different spin and overall, it’s an enjoyable thriller. 

You could imagine it filmed as a serial for Saturday morning cinema once-upon-a-time - full of cliff-hangers and thrilling escapes and mysteries. The relationship between Penelope, Alfie her assistant and the actor playing Montgomery Flinch gives plenty of warmth and humour to the adventures.

This book would suit a wide range of confident readers - the lightness with which it is written means that the perils shown are unlikely to upset even the most sensitive of souls - yet there is a pleasurable frisson from the more ghostly aspects.

You don’t need to have read the two previous stories  - but I expect those who have will find the ending of this one particularly satisfying.

Ideal for when you want a good, fast, escapist read in a less-than-obvious time period.