'The wolves howled, far behind, but it was not a song for her.
Night-smells of the Forest stirred.
Ferns were curling, wildflowers closing, sap retreating.
She went further in.’
Willow’s dad has disappeared: stolen by foxes in the night. To find him, Willow must enter the secret world of the Forest. There she will speak with wolves and find the magical Tower where the foxes are ruled by their silver-tongued leader, Reynard.
In the Tower, Willow sees wonders: statues walking the streets, spires reaching to the stars, and a lion who wants to be king. But disaster is near. The magic is running out and soon the Tower will fall.
Reynard has a plan that will change everything, and he needs Willow’s help. But can she trust the story he is telling? Can Willow save her dad and find a way out of the Fox’s Tower?
I read, really enjoyed and reviewed The Fox's Tower a while ago (and the first book, Wolfstongue, a while before that), and now I've been lucky enough to corner the author and ask him some questions! I hope you enjoy this.
Hi Sam! Tell us a bit about yourself.
I'm from the south of England, and now I live in Belfast with my wife Caoileann, my children Oisín, Odhrán and Sadhbh (11, 9 and 8 years old), plus Suky the dog and Zebby the cat. As a fiction writer I like to try out different things: novels and short stories, the fantastical and the realistic. My last book but one was a story collection called Whirlwind Romance, which is all about that mixture of the everyday and the strange. I sometimes write for grown-ups and sometimes for children, although I don't think the distinction means much from the writer's point of view - it's always just a case of writing the story in the way it needs to be written. My day job is teaching at Queen's University here in Belfast. Other than that, in our house we do a lot of drawing, watch a lot of cartoons and play plenty of music and Dungeons & Dragons.
I'm from the south of England, and now I live in Belfast with my wife Caoileann, my children Oisín, Odhrán and Sadhbh (11, 9 and 8 years old), plus Suky the dog and Zebby the cat. As a fiction writer I like to try out different things: novels and short stories, the fantastical and the realistic. My last book but one was a story collection called Whirlwind Romance, which is all about that mixture of the everyday and the strange. I sometimes write for grown-ups and sometimes for children, although I don't think the distinction means much from the writer's point of view - it's always just a case of writing the story in the way it needs to be written. My day job is teaching at Queen's University here in Belfast. Other than that, in our house we do a lot of drawing, watch a lot of cartoons and play plenty of music and Dungeons & Dragons.
How did you come up with the idea for this series?
Wolfstongue, the first book in the series, began with my son Odhrán when he was five or six. He was dealing with some speech difficulties at the time, and he was also very keen on wolves and foxes -- and these elements came together in my head to form an idea. I realised that a story about talking animals could be a way to write about the challenges and the power of words. Then the story turned out to be bigger than I'd expected -- writing Wolfstongue led me into some deep questions not just about language, but also about how human beings relate to the non-human world, and I realised I was going to have to keep writing: hence The Fox's Tower!
Wolfstongue, the first book in the series, began with my son Odhrán when he was five or six. He was dealing with some speech difficulties at the time, and he was also very keen on wolves and foxes -- and these elements came together in my head to form an idea. I realised that a story about talking animals could be a way to write about the challenges and the power of words. Then the story turned out to be bigger than I'd expected -- writing Wolfstongue led me into some deep questions not just about language, but also about how human beings relate to the non-human world, and I realised I was going to have to keep writing: hence The Fox's Tower!
The animal characters in your stories come from medieval literature. Is that an area you're interested in?
I'm no expert, but I did love reading some medieval literature as a student, especially Chaucer and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The animal characters in Wolfstongue and The Fox's Tower come from the medieval cycle of tales known as Reynard the Fox, in which Reynard is a trickster antihero in the mould of Loki or Anansi -- he's always scheming and getting himself into trouble, but he always eventually gets the better of his arch-rival, Isengrim the wolf. Part of the inspiration for Wolfstongue was to reverse that dynamic and give the wolf a chance to come out on top; but I've grown ever more fond of Reynard as I carry on writing about him. His mischievous, inventive energy is a wonderful wellspring for storytelling.
What's it like working with Anna Tromop for the illustration? (narrator's note; the illustration in both books is absolutely fantastic, dreamy and immediate and fantasy and real all at once!)
Anna's illustrations are a vital part of both Wolfstongue and The Fox's Tower -- I had never worked with an illustrator before, and it was amazing to see how she could both capture the atmosphere of the stories and open up whole new dimensions to them. Physical environments mean a lot in both books, with the infinite ancient woodland of the Forest and the huge Escher-like vertical city of the Tower, and Anna is very skilled at building those worlds. Really, I think a writer's greatest wish is for their stories to spring vividly to life in the reader's mind's eye -- so to see this happening on the page in the form of Anna's artwork is sheer delight.
Are you hoping to write more in the series, or would you like to try something different?
There is one more book in the series, provisionally titled The Forest Yet To Come. I still haven't finished exploring those ideas that I uncovered in Wolfstongue - there is more to say about language and silence and Reynard's tricks! It's very interesting to pursue an idea and a group of characters through several books, seeing how the story takes on a new shape each time and reveals more about what's at the heart of the matter: at the moment I'm finding that this itself is a great way of trying something different.
And finally, just for fun; who is your favourite Muppet?
A very hard question. I'll have to say Beaker. He may only have the one facial expression and a vocabulary confined to the word meep, but there's a lot going on there.
A very hard question. I'll have to say Beaker. He may only have the one facial expression and a vocabulary confined to the word meep, but there's a lot going on there.
Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us, Sam! I can't wait to see The Forest Yet to Come as well as whatever else you produce inbetween.
The Fox's Tower is available now.
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