Goodreads asked Malcolm Richards:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Malcolm Richards The ideas behind The Hiding House came from a few different places. The setting is very much from my childhood. I grew up in Cornwall and spent almost every weekend at my grandmother's farm, which was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. She lived quite an isolated life in that respect, and I think there's a lot of that in the book.

I'd also been teaching children with complex emotional and behavioural needs at the time, and some of the experiences that they'd lived through were just shocking. They were tough these kids, they'd learned to cope with terrible circumstances. I have the utmost respect for them. I wanted to put that resilience in the book - kids are much more resourceful than we give them credit for.

Finally, I'd grown up with an obsession with Grimms fairy tales. I love the darkness to them - the original versions are essentially horror stories for kids! It seemed fitting, giving the settng of the story, a bit of a fairy tale twist - which is why you'll find several analogies and references in The Hiding House.

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