The door flew open, and Granny stared out at Cat with wild eyes.
‘So,’ she said, almost in a whisper, ‘they’re back.’
For the first time in over fifty years, the Trooping Fairies are in the small town of Clonbridge for their annual Revels. Their arrival awakens other creatures, who have mischief and chaos in mind.
Eleven-year-old Cat is in more danger than most. She has the Sight, like her Granny before her, and that makes her a magnet for all things supernatural. But when the wild magic hurts her family, she needs to find a friend she can really trust. Together they face real danger and must use all their wits and bravery to save those they love, before the sun rises …
welcome to the tour for this fabulous, fantasy read! I won't spoil it too much as the tour is ongoing, but it is beautiful, clever, sad in the right spots and overall a wonderful read.
We've been lucky enough to have the author, Alex, stop by the blog to answer a few questions about the book.
Hi Alex! Welcome to the blog, thanks for stopping by and chatting with us today.
Let's start with the basics. This is your first book, no one knows anything about you yet. Tell us a bit about you.
Hi Jenn! Thank you for having me! I’m Alex. I’m originally from the west of Ireland but I’ve lived in Toronto, Canada since 2011. I moved here “for a year” during the height of the recession and somehow it’s 11 years later. Toronto is a great city but Ireland forever has my heart and I try to get back there as often as possible. I write mostly fantastical stories for childrens, teens, and adults and The Book of Secrets is my very first novel.
And The Book of Secrets! Give us some background on that. Where did the idea come from?
Stories rarely come to me as one big, shiny idea. Rather, I’ll think of a lot of little ideas - a character that interests me, a cool setting, a stray line of dialogue - over a long period of time. I collect them all in a Google doc and allow them to percolate until I start to see how the threads connect into something bigger.
The first seeds of what became The Book of Secrets were planted back in 2014 when my uncle took me to a ringfort a few miles away from the house I grew up in that I had never known about. As soon as I saw the ruins of the ringfort on a hill surrounded by a forest, I knew there was a touch of magic about the place. I immediately thought of an ancient fairy fort and I wondered what would it look like if it was restored to its former glory.
Other ideas I collected included a grandmother and grandaughter who share a secret affinity for the supernatural and a town where the fairies visit every few years to cause chaos.
Over time the idea fragments began to knit together into an outline that vaguely resembled The Book of Secrets!
How gorgeous is that cover? Was there a lot of work involved in getting it there?
On my end it basically involved a lot of jumping up and down screaming “OH MY GOD IT’S PERFECT!” That’s about as much credit as I can take! It was all down to my publishers and the artist, Shona Shirley Macdonald. The team at O’Brien Press understood exactly what kind of story I was trying to tell and, in my opinion, I don’t think they could have found a better artist than Shona to design the cover.
Were there any scenes, ideas, moments that you really loved but had to leave out? Or scenes, ideas, moments that you didn't really like at first but now you love?
I’m someone who works best if I have at least a loose outline before I start writing so I knew the basic plot of The Book of Secrets before I ever put pen to paper. Since I wrote the first draft during NaNoWriMo (which, if you don’t know, is an annual writing challenge where people commit to writing 50k words of a draft during the month of November! It’s good chaotic fun) I actually ended up adding some scenes in or expanding on them further rather than cutting anything out. However, since the story is based heavily on Irish folklore and myth, I have a whole pile of ideas that never even made it as far as the drafting stage!
With regards to scenes I didn’t like at first, I would have to say that I was dreading the ending. I wanted to make sure I wrapped up all the story threads in a way that would be satisfying to the reader - it felt like a lot of pressure and I was so worried I wouldn’t stick the landing. I put a lot of work into it though and I’m very happy with how it turned out in the end.
Tell us about some kid's books you really like! One (or more!) from your childhood and one (or more!) contemporary?
I ended up writing and rewriting this section because it I couldn’t stop adding books to the list! I’ve had to force myself to show some restraint because I could genuinely write an essay based on this question alone. Books were (unsurprisingly) a huge part of my childhood. It’s actually one of the reasons why I was so excited for my very first book to be a Middle Grade novel. From the age of 8-13, books meant more to me than at any other time in my life. I read absolutely anything I could get my hands on and some of favourite authors (and influences) were Roald Dahl, Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Morpurgo, CS Lewis, Judy Blume, Philip Pullman, JRR Tolkein, Enid Blyton, and Diana Wynne Jones.
There are also a tonne of books that still have a really special place in my heart which have gone out of print or are hard to come by these days (if anyone finds a copy of When the Luvenders Came to Merrick Town by June Considine or Lucy and the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing by Ann Jungman let me know! I’d love a nostalgic trip down memory lane).
In terms of modern kidlit, I feel like we’re living in such a golden age. I absolutely adore the work of my fellow Irish authors Padraig Kenny (The Monsters of Rookhaven), Dave Rudden (Knights of the Borrowed Dark series) and Catherine Doyle (a fellow aficionado of Irish mythology - her newest book The Lost Girl King looks incredible). Other books I’ve loved lately include Rules for Vampires by Alex Foulkes and Hedgewitch by Skye McKenna. I also have a giant TBR pile that’s threatening to break my shelf (and empty my bank account).
And finally, just for fun; who is your favourite Muppet? (This question will absolutely affect our relationship going forward, just so you know!)
This is probably the most important question of the whole interview and I have put a LOT of thought into it (some might say TOO much thought). I considered all the factors (should my answer be restricted to one of the classic line up? Do Sesame Street Muppets count?), I weighed up the pros and cons of each, and I’ve finally made my choice. My favourite Muppet… is Pepe the King Prawn.
I will not be elaborating on this choice at this time.
Can't say fairer than that! Thanks so much for chatting with us today, Alex. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
The Book of Secrets is available now. The blog tour is running all this week on the blogs listed below.
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