It’s been a busy few weeks, spreading word of my new release, The Warder. Last week brought me close to home, with an invite to the Curiosity Café. One of the things I love most about where I live is the feel of community, and all those marvellous individuals working tirelessly to maintain the sense of a community hub. Not to be thwarted by lockdowns, the Curiosity Café sprouted last year. A virtual meet up, with invited guests from the local community, delivering talks and giving insights into a whole host of weird and wonderful topics that occupy their lives.
One I was sorry to have missed was an artist locally infamous for his birds that suddenly appeared throughout town at the start of lockdown:
Last week was my turn, where from the comfort of my writing room I gave readings and answered questions from my series Blood Gift Chronicles. A few well-chosen extracts can take people on an extraordinary journey in a short space of time. For the purposes of this event, we discovered the farmlands of Shendi and the dark world of the mines in Return of the Mantra. Then onto The Warder where we meet the gifted young man, Wanda, cursed by a shadow. I have read the same extract time and again, yet I still feel that whoosh when we fly with the hawk.
In this series that spans decades, one of the things I love is seeing how the characters age and grow. Suni’s had quite a journey so far, from an awkward girl in a dangerous world, she survives and learns to embrace her identity. When we meet her again in The Warder, she has grown into a compassionate leader, gifted to watch over her friends. Her first scene is the extract I often choose to read, where, from the safety of home, she steps out into the mysterious world of Serafay.
And finally my new character, Luna. It’s one of the things I love about writing in the young adult genre, the flexibility to write any age of character. At just ten years old, she is a girl with a secret. I wrote it, but when I think about her journey, it leaves me perched on the edge of my seat…
Happy Reading!
