Bonnie, a girl torn between the harsh reality of her mother's weaknesses and her grandmother's strong will escapes her home one day by sneaking into her neighbor's hot air balloon. But instead of flying into the clouds and back down, she lands in another world, something like her own, but both kinder and somehow much more terrifying. She's not sure if she can ever leave this nearly parallel world and return to her own. And if she did, she isn't sure she'll be able to bring back with her the sense of warmth and love she has grown to cherish. Amazingly, she does both.
I've been a published author for twenty-one years, and the anniversary e-book edition of my first novel, the Smarties Prize winning 'Midnight Blue' celebrates that date. But I've been making up stories all my life. Even before I could join my letters together, I was building worlds inside my head. The way I saw it, my parents' garden was full of hidden fairy folk, the alley behind it was their kingdom and if home life was boring at least the local library was close by - my gateway to all things fabulous and exciting.
I remember that library being built. I didn't come from a bookish family, but the day it opened, I enrolled. It became my second home. I loved everything about books, including their smell. If I could have bottled 'Essence of Library', it would have been up there with roses and vanilla ice-cream.
Reading brought me freedom but writing, I discovered, was even more liberating. Throughout my teens and early twenties I worked on an apprenticeship, writing poems, short-stories and unfinished novels, copying the styles of all my favourite authors, but not with enough confidence to truly have faith in my own.
It was only after the birth of my fifth child - not the best time to return to writing, with none of my children over the age of eleven and two not yet even in school - that I eventually found my literary voice. Trusting in that voice at long last, and in myself as a writer who didn't need to sound or feel like anybody else, I wrote 'Midnight Blue'. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children's Book Award, long-listed for the Carnegie and won the Smarties. The Guardian called that year by annus mirabilis.
I've been writing ever since. Eleven novels to date. In the interests of research I've been down lead mines and into haunted houses, have followed the courses of rivers from source to sea, have flown in a hot air balloon and even been out to the jungles of Belize. Who says the author's life is desk-bound!
My trip to Belize, funded by the British Arts Council, took me out into the rainforest to meet groups of young volunteers working on conservation projects to help save the forest from destruction. With my own eyes I saw how terrible that destruction was, and with my own eyes I saw that young people, with a will, can really make the difference to the world around them. I came out of that jungle determined to do justice to the commitment and hard work I'd seen, and to Belize as well, which is a fabulous country, rich in culture, mix of peoples, jungle and Caribbean coastline. The novel that came out of that trip is called 'In the Trees' and it's published by Faber & Faber.
Do look up my books. They're all for sale here on Amazon. My latest venture is the re-edited anniversary Kindle edition of 'Midnight Blue', which has a fabulous new cover.
When I'm not writing, I'm to be found on one of my weaving looms, or enjoying walking the Shropshire hills amongst which I live. I'm an avid reader too. I always have more books on the go than I can possibly finish.
But most of all I'm a writer. It's not a career. It's who you are. A way of life. And there are always new stories waiting to be written. So watch my Author Pages. There may be a new book out, but it won't be the last.
