Interview with Enchanted Books

I am delighted to say that this month sees the long-delayed publication of The Bell Between Worlds in Paperback here in the UK and the hardback publication in the US! It is so exciting to be be taking The Mirror Chronicles to a wider audience and to mark the occasion, I have been doing a few interviews and guest posts on prominent blogs. I thought it might be good to mention some of them here, in case they might be of interest.

The first is with Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books, which does great work in promoting middle grade and young adult writing in the UK and was a hugely supportive of the hardback when it came out.

This is how the interview began...


1. Tell us a little bit about The Bell Between Worlds.

The book tells the story of young Sylas Tate, who lives in peculiar old terrace called Gabblety Row. Between running errands for his peevish Uncle Tobias, Sylas escapes into his dreams, dreams that take him as far as possible from his uncle and from thoughts of his mother, who died some years before. But the world changes beyond his wildest imaginings when The Shop of Things opens in the Row. The shopkeeper shows him three wonderful “Things”: strange, magical objects that seem to prove that there is something special about young Sylas Tate. Before he is able to discover any more he is woken in the middle of the night by the ear-splitting toll of a bell, a chime that seems to shake the footings of the world but that astonishingly, only he can hear. As the sound of the bell rages in his ears, Sylas begins a journey: a voyage of discovery that takes him into a world subtly different from the one he knows, a world where magic replaces science, a world of wonders that will soon unravel everything he has ever known. But he finds answers too, about the fate of his mother, about the two worlds and his own astonishing powers, and about the nature of our very soul.

2. Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

Well, like any fantasy writer a key preoccupation of mine is wonder – capturing it and evoking it – and I want to share my wonder not only at magical things but also at the endless potential of our imagination and the staggering beauty and power of nature. If that doesn’t sound too high-minded! I would like to take the reader on a magical journey but also show my wonder at the real world – our world. That’s why I chose to write the book as a portal fantasy, spanning worlds of both magic and science and teasing out a correspondence between the two.
The trilogy also explores some basic questions: why is it that we doubt ourselves? Why is it that so much of our potential is often hidden to us? And why do we turn so readily to superstitions and mythologies to find answers? Obviously these are big topics to grapple with (I can only hope I am up to the task!) but they explain why this is a very big story that needs the depth and breadth of a series of books. The resulting trilogy, The Mirror Chronicles, will publish over the next year or two. Book two, Circles of Stone, is out in July!

If you are interested in the rest of the interview you'll find it here:

http://www.mrripleysenchantedbooks.co...