It is rare to hear from cover designers in children’s literature, especially on blogs, and even less usual for an author to interview the cover designer. Yet this Q&A session by author Tamsin Mori and cover designer David Dean makes for fascinating reading. It provides an insight into the creative and collaborative process of turning a story into a book. Gargoyles, Guardians Of The Source cover blurb: A crumbling mansion A magical source A living gargoyle Callen’s Dad has always been secretive of his past but when the family have to move into his childhood home, the last thing Callen e ..read more

When Christopher goes to stay with the grandfather he has never met before, he discovers that there is a portal to another world in the back garden. While the creatures in our world are dying due to a human-caused climate crisis, the creatures of the Archipelago are kept alive because the glimourie – the magic that originated from the Earth’s first tree – is no longer shared between the worlds. It now exists solely in the Archipelago. The creatures of this world are magical. Christopher’s grandfather is the guardian of the way through and it is his job to protect that world from ruin. One day ..read more

A spooky old town called Barrow. The legendary Bogwitch who is said take one child every time the town floods in retaliation for an historical wrong. A secretive society that protects Barrow’s heritage. Lewis finds himself chased by rooks as his family move to his father’s home town of Barrow so Lewis can sit a scholarship examination for the school his father always dreamed of entering. The problem is, Lewis and his Dad are two different people. When a girl called Moria – or at least that’s what everyone thinks her name is – turns up at his doorstep, Lewis finds himself in a race to connect ..read more

Ciao Venezia! With the final book, Nightfall in New York, being published on 8th July, it’s time to revisit the previous books in the Taylor & Rose Secret Agents series — including third book, Villains in Venice.  Actually, Villains in Venice almost wasn’t set in Venice at all. When I first started planning the series, my intention was to set it in Vienna, which was one of the most influential and important cities in Europe at the time — in 1912, it was home to all kinds of interesting people, from artist Gustav Klimt to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud ..read more

Felix has been full of money-making schemes all of his life. The trouble is that most of his enterprises have come to nothing … until now. When Felix’s friend Mo produces a card for his grandmother, Felix spots her potential as a card designer. First his grandmother’s friends buy packs of Mo’s cards, then local people, and soon Felix is runs his own online business: Kardmart. At first Felix, Mo, and their classmates Ned and Ellie-Mae have equal shares in the business. Felix is the manager, Mo the card designer, Ned is the computer wizard, while Ellie-Mae is the accountant. They also employ Fe ..read more

Article by author Marie Basting LARPe Diem! The idea for My Family and Other Romans came to me in a dream. Red caped legionaries, glowing amber as they boarded a gleaming silver bullet train. It was too good a story seed not to plant. But it was historical right? I didn’t write historical fiction. I wrote fantasy, funny books that helped us escape the present rather than delve into our past. I couldn’t write a book set in Ancient Rome! But what if I gave that Roman world a twist? Maybe then I could pull it off? That twist was LARP.   LARP (Live Action Role Play) is a ..read more

April 1912. Clarty Clara is the baby of her large family who is known for causing trouble. She lives on a ranch but has always dreamed of adventures, like the kind had by her cousin Harold, or Harry, who is th5Marconi operator aboard HMS Carpathia. When Clara is prevented from seeing Harry due to her bad behaviour, she takes matters into her own hands and hides in his trunk, hoping for a chance to spend some time with him before he returns to sea. Things don’t go quite to plan, however, and Clara finds herself a stowaway on the HMS Carpathia. After befriending giant dog Rigel who is trapped i ..read more

Hal and Uncle Nat are hitting the rails again. This time, their train is Arctic-bound. They are off to see the Northern Lights. On the way to catch their train they visit Uncle Nat’s friend Morti, who has won the Nobel Prize for her work in targeting cancerous cells with sound frequencies. Morti’s ex-husband Björn worked on this theory too, but he took it in a different direction, creating a sound that could kill instead of cure: the Kill Code. Björn hoped to sell the the Kill Code and become rich. Morti handed Björn in and destroyed the Kill Code for good. Or so she thought until her apartme ..read more

The Twitchers are back with a new crime against nature to solve. When Jack rescues an injured cat, he learns that it has been shot and therefore that humans are responsible. He promises the cat’s elderly owner that he will solve the mystery of who is behind the shooting. However, Jack’s friend Twitch isn’t so keen on getting drawn into another mystery. A rare bird, the bearded vulture, is heading towards the skies over Briddvale and Twitch is determined to catch a sighting. Jack isn’t so enthusiastic – he’s never been so good at the birdwatching stuff and he only got involved when he made fri ..read more

About: Polly Pecorino is an animal rescuer – she has been this way all her life. She’s also able to talk to animals. Her Uncle Stan works at Happy Days Zoo and Polly spends lots of her time chatting to the zoo’s inhabitants. Unfortunately, the zoo has been a miserable place since it was taken over by Mr and Mrs Snell. When the Snells kidnap a tiny bear cub, and put him on display, they provoke the anger of the bears in the Wild Wood. The bears are angry and they want their cub back. After their rescue attempts fail, it falls to Polly to take BooBoo out of the zoo and guide him home to the bea ..read more