Back Catalogue Secrets II

The Main Characters

Brueberon – A very lonely over-sized dragon in need of a friend.
Clarissa Henry – An extreme reader who dreams of worlds other than the one she lives in.
Kastaspella – A dastardly witch who detests Clarissa and hopes to make her life even more miserable than it already is.

A Book Is Born

My intention was never to write a children’s book. Before I started working at Inkhead I actively avoided little children quite simply because I was afraid of them. Okay, terrified is more accurate a description. As a teacher I stuck with teenagers. Despite their erratic qualities I related to them very well. Perhaps I was still a teenager at heart.

Ultimately I assumed my writing would focus on teen and adult themes. At the time I was already writing the first in my Sci Fi series and was almost done with the final edit of my debut novel. So I was a little stunned to find myself writing The Lonely Dragon. I’m even more surprised now to find myself producing a sequel. And still more astounded to find myself sucked into writing the memoirs of a character I considered to be minor. I of course mean Jinx, Kastaspella’s cat and feline Familiar. Let’s just hope he doesn’t read this as he’d be particularly miffed that I ever considered him minor. I can assure you, my thinking on that score has been totally revised.

If you ask where the idea for The Lonely Dragon came from, I honestly don’t know. The book wrote itself. Bruberon was the character most prominent in my thoughts. In my mind’s eye he was like the dragon from The NeverEnding Story but without the sophistication and assurance that dragon displayed.

Clarissa’s character is probably most like my own as she spends a great deal of time reading and daydreaming. The rest of the story is made up of my love of mixing fact and fiction till the lines blur.

The front cover came about because I worked with a young artist, Anastasia Scudamore and a group of children she was teaching at the time. The aim was to show them that art can be used as the basis for an income. I provided extracts from the book and the children created the most marvellous paintings. The first edition cover featured every single drawing even though book cover designers were appalled. I very much wanted every child to know their work was appreciated. The new edition still uses a cropped image from one of those paintings.

To celebrate the fact that Memoirs of a Feline Familiar (the spin-off inspired by a once supposedly minor character) is due for release as soon as all the final edits are done, the e-book of The Lonely Dragon is available FREE until 20 March.

Enjoy!

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