Steve Griffin's Blog, page 17

The Dreamer Falls – Cover

Here’s the final cover for The Dreamer Falls, the third book in The Secret of the Tirthas. I’m very happy with this. What do you think? I’m doing a final proofread at the moment and aiming for the book to be out in the next 3-4 weeks. A perfect read for the beach!

Author Review – Katherine Rundell

Jpeg

I recently finished The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell, one of my favourite children’s authors. Like Rooftoppers and The Girl Savage, this book is highly original and poetic, with a very driven heroine. Feo helps her mum re-wild the no-longer-wanted wolves who have been tamed as status symbols by the elite of Tsarist Russia. The story takes a treacherous turn when a wolf kills a farm animal and wicked General Rakov tells Feo and her mum that all the wolves need to be killed – something...

The Dreamer Falls – little excerpt

A little excerpt from The Dreamer Falls, due out within the next month or so (photo from Murchison Falls, Uganda):

“She must have dozed off for a while because when she opened her eyes again she found herself staring at something she recognised, lying on a bare patch of yellowy-brown sand, beneath the hanging fronds of a palm. It was something she knew very well, long and squat, a creature she knew from stories, right from childhood, and one that she had seen before in… zoos!

‘A crocodile! I...

Last Time

Yesterday was the 72nd anniversary of D-Day. My grandfathers, Fred Griffin and Egon Korn, fought on opposing sides. Egon, a young German of sixteen, was captured shortly after D-Day at the Battle of Caen. He was aiming a bazooka at a tank when the tank commander saw him and fired his machine gun at him. My grandfather’s stick grenade was hit and it exploded, injuring him terribly and killing his friend. He was saved by the Red Cross, sent to Canada, then Scotland, and finally to Eastbourne wh...

The Dreamer Falls – African photoblog

The Dreamer Falls, the third adventure in The Secret of the Tirthas, is now in draft and due for publication this summer. It’s set mainly in the jungle in Cameroon, where Lizzie has to go to save a local village boy who’s accidentally discovered one of the portals in her garden.

I decided to set The Dreamer Falls in Cameroon for two reasons: 1) I was keen to bring into a story a Nkisi fetish and some other interesting African artefacts I’d seen at an exhibition in The National Gallery and 2)...

Every Bird is Singing

A while back, whilst posting about the influence of painting on my poetry, I mentioned the artist Jocelyn Merivale who died two years ago, far too young.

Below is a sequence of short poems I wrote after visiting an exhibition of Jocelyn’s held at her home in Merton. I’ve included a few photos of her paintings, although I’m afraid they’re not the exact same ones that inspired the poems – but they give a good flavour of her talent. I would put all her paintings up here, they’re fabulous.

And a...

Interview on the Pebble in the Still Waters blog

Goodreads is a great way to meet other readers and writers. Last week I connected with the Indian author Jaideep Khanduja, who offered me an interview on his blog, Pebble in the Still Waters – and here it is. Thank you Jaideep!

http://pebbleinthestillwaters.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/steve-griffin-book-of-life-secret-of.html

The Dreamer Falls

This is a Nkisi, a fetish statue used in parts of Africa to summon ancestor spirits to your aid. You enact its power by licking then bashing in nails.

A Nkisi statue turns up as an Artefact of Power in The Dreamer Falls, the third book of The Secret of the Tirthas, which is now in its first draft and will be out this summer.

In the book Lizzie’s sense of duty once again gets the better of her as she heads through a tirtha into the Cameroonian jungle to rescue hapless village boy Thomas Benne...

Hands Full Mama blog – review of The City of Light

Just received a very nice review of The City of Light from Maureen, a Massachusetts book reviewer, on her Hands Full Mama blog. Here’s an excerpt:

“This was a lovely book. I loved the way that Indian culture, religion, and mythology was incorporated into the plot. Griffin’s descriptions of Kashi are vivid and realistic. I also liked the mystery element; Lizzie begins to suspect that someone else is using the portal – for sinister reasons. She isn’t sure who she can trust – and who she should...

The Welsh Marches – Photoblog

Rowan Cottage, the house that Lizzie inherits in The City of Light, is set near the fictional village of Hebley, loosely based on the black-and-white village of Weobley. I’ve already posted about the real garden of rooms that The Secret of the Tirthas is based on here, but here’s a few photos of the remote, beautiful, and occasionally austere area known as the Welsh Marches, which serves as a backdrop to the books:

Looking towards Hay Bluff and Twmpa, at the western edge of the Black Mountain...