Say hello to Kaufhaus der Träume (Department Store of Dreams)! Das Rätsel um den verschwundenen Spatz (aka The Clockwork Sparrow) will be published in Germany by Ravensburger on 27 August.
It’s been translated into German by Katharina Orgaß, and the illustrator is Alessandra Fusi. I love how different the cover is from the UK and US edition of The Clockwork Sparrow, whilst being just as gorgeous with its luscious Edwardian fashions and delicate Art Nouveau-inspired detail. How lucky am I to have another incredibly lovely cover?!
Pre-order Kaufhaus der Träume, Band 1: Das Rätsel um den verschwundenen Spatz or find out more on the Ravensburger website.
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I’m delighted that my books have popped up on two fabulous prize shortlists! First up is the Independent Bookshop Week 2017 Children’s Book Award. I’m so excited that The Painted Dragon has been shortlisted for this award, alongside a host of wonderful children’s books (see above) – thank you so much booksellers and judges! There are two other award categories – one for an adult book, and one for a children’s picture book – and you can check out all the shortlists on the Independent Bookshop Week website here. The winners of all three categories will be announced on 23 June, just before this year’s Independent Bookshop Week kicks off.
Secondly, I’m thrilled that The Mystery of the Jewelled Moth has been shortlisted for CrimeFest’s Gala Awards 2017. This is the first year that CrimeFest have had a children’s category to their awards, and the prize will recognise the contribution novels for children make to the crime genre – hurrah! A new YA crime category has been introduced too, and there are lots of my favourites on both lists. The winners will be announced at a dinner in May: find out more about CrimeFest and their awards here. Thank you so much to the judges for selecting Jewelled Moth for the shortlist!
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London map, 1900
When I started writing The Clockwork Sparrow, I knew that London was going to be a hugely important part of the Sinclair’s Mysteries. I started writing the first book not long after moving to London, and I wanted to take inspiration from my own experiences of living in the city, as well as the real history of London in the 1900s, and weave this into the world of the books.
I’ve spent lots of time walking around London, exploring everywhere from the glitzy shops, restaurants and theatres of the West End (including of course, the department stores that helped inspire Sinclair‘s) to the former docklands of the East, which plays such an important part in The Jewelled Moth. I’ve wandered the streets of Bloomsbury, where art school the Spencer Institute appears, and the twisty streets of the City, where mysterious gentlemen’s club Wyvern House can be found. I’ve enjoyed spotting all kinds of traces of the old Edwardian city which still exist in the fabric of modern-day London – from the intriguing ‘ghost signs’ that you can still see on some old buildings, to 1900s lamp-posts, and even pubs like the Lady Ottoline, named for Edwardian society hostess Lady Ottoline Morrell.
I’ve looked at maps, photographs, and even travel-guides to London from the 1900s. I wanted to be able to imagine as vividly as I could what it might have felt like for my characters, as they walked around London’s streets over 100 years ago. And although most of the places in the books are fictional, they are very much inspired by the real places and spaces of the city that I’ve explored and found out about.
With this in mind, I’ve created a new interactive map, with lots more about the real life places that inspired some of the most important locations in the Sinclair’s Mysteries. You can read more about it over on the Egmont blog – or click on a pin to start exploring the map.
Check out my other ‘Behind the Scenes’ posts exploring the historical background of the Sinclair’s Mysteries
One of the funny thing about being a writer is that after a lot of time sitting by yourself working on a book, once it finally makes its way out into the world, it’s time to do the exact opposite. That means putting on clothes that aren’t pyjamas or very old tracksuit bottoms, and doing challenging things like leaving the house and speaking to other people. Specifically it means heading out on the road for lots of events, meeting readers at schools, in bookshops and at festivals – and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing over the last month or so, since The Painted Dragon hit bookshelves in February…
It all began with a special mystery-themed half-term event at Waterstones Piccadilly. Officer Stephen welcomed us all and announced that Lord Waterstones’s valuable painting had been mysteriously stolen from the store – and there were a number of sinister suspects who could be responsible for the theft. Luckily some young detectives were on the case, and got to work finding clues around the shop, cracking codes and assessing the evidence to discover ‘whodunnit’! I was there to help with the mystery-solving – as well as reading from The Painted Dragon and signing some books, of course.
Officer Stephen and detectives
Next up was an author event at the LSE Literary Festival. I was so pleased to meet such a crowd of readers (the room was packed) who had the chance to put their own detective skills to the test, as well as to dress up in my array of Edwardian hats.
On World Book Day, we headed to Waterstones Kensington for our first ever Down the Rabbit Hole Live event! We were joined by three amazing children’s authors – Abi Elphinstone, Cathryn Constable and Piers Torday – to discuss writing and the power of the imagination. We even had a go at crowd-sourcing a story with the help of the children in the audience. You can listen to some of the audio from the event on the DTRH website here (and check out some news on another forthcoming DTRH Live coming up at the Hay Festival in May).
At Waterstones Kensington
Next it was time to visit some schools! I kicked things off with a visit to South Hampstead Junior School, to help them celebrate World Book Day – and then it was time to hit the road for the official Painted Dragon schools tour.
At King Edward VI Handsworth School – photo by Annie Everall
Lovely Annie Everall from Authors Aloud had organised the tour, which began in Birmingham with a visit to King Edward VI Handsworth school. From then we went on to Wolverhampton Grammar School and Sibford School, followed by a book-signing at Blackwell’s Oxford – plus a wonderful tour of the rare books collection. I especially enjoyed peeping in at the ‘Gaffer’s Room’ .
More tour photos by Annie Everall
Next were Eltham School, Prendergast Ladywell School, Bute House and Beaconsfield High School. It was a crazy, jam-packed week but it’s always fun to visit schools and meet lots of pupils, teachers and school librarians – Annie and I had a great time.
Back in London, I teamed up with Mystery Girl extraordinaire Robin Stevens for a special event at the Daunt Books Festival – complete with cupcakes! I loved chatting to Robin about her fabulous Murder Most Unladylike series and meeting many mystery fans after the event.
Robin and I in wonderful Daunt Books
Robin and I were back together very soon afterwards for the Mountains to Sea Festival in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin. This time we were joined by a gang of brilliant children’s authors – Jo Cotterill, Dave Rudden and Jonathan Stroud – for two really fun panel events chaired by Little Island Press’s Grainne Clear. I love doing panel events: it’s always so fascinating to hear other writers talk about their books, what inspires them, and how they write. Highlights of these events included debating what superpowers we’d each choose, and seeing how many pens we could put in Dave’s beard (spoiler: it was loads). Off-stage, we had fun hanging out with festival programmer Sarah Webb and the other visiting authors who were in town at the same time, including Eoin Colfer and Chris Riddell. I especially loved exploring Dun Laoghaire and its fabulous library.
A few highlights from Mountains to Sea
Before heading home, I whizzed over to Salford for a visit to The Lowry for the Salford Children’s Book Awards! I was so delighted to be shortlisted for the 2017 prize, and to have the chance to meet and chat to lots of Sinclair’s Mysteries fans from Salford schools at the event.
Now that Painted Dragon is well and truly launched, it’s back to my writing desk (and tracksuit bottoms) for a little while – well, until the next round of events, anyway!
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I wrote the original version of this post when The Jewelled Moth was first published, for the fab YA Yeah Yeah’s ‘Classics’ series. Since a few people have asked recently about the relationship between The Jewelled Moth and The Moonstone, I thought I’d put a few thoughts here too!
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, published in 1868, is often considered to be the first real detective novel written in English. It’s a captivating read – the story of a mysterious (perhaps cursed) diamond stolen from an English country house in strange circumstances. Crime writer Dorothy Sayers called it ‘probably the finest detective story ever written’ and TS Eliot went as far as to say that the detective genre was ‘invented’ by Wilkie Collins. It’s inspired many crime writers including PD James, and it features a lot of the elements that we expect from a classic detective tale – from the English country house setting, to its world-weary detective Sergeant Cuff, to its exciting, twisty plot.
However, whilst it might be a thrilling read, The Moonstone is also very much a product of its times. At the very start of the story, against the backdrop of the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, a British soldier steals a priceless diamond – the Moonstone – from an Indian temple. A few years later, he leaves the diamond to his niece, Miss Rachel Verinder as a gift for her eighteenth birthday. But as soon as the Moonstone arrives at her country home, Rachel, her family, and their guests all become aware of the threatening presence of a group of Indians on the trail of their long-lost jewel, who (we are told) will stop at nothing to get their sacred diamond back.
Over the course of the story, the diamond is stolen; a famous detective is called in to solve the case and return Miss Verinder’s diamond; and a whole cast of characters find themselves drawn into the mystery. Yet no one ever seems to point out the obvious: that the British soldier was the original thief, and it is in fact the Indians and not Miss Verinder who are the true owners of the Moonstone.
One of the things I love about The Moonstone is that it’s told in a range of different voices – from that of the Verinder’s old and trusted servant, Gabriel Betteredge, to evangelical busybody Miss Clack. However, the Indian characters are never allowed to relate their versions of events: they appear only through the narratives of the white British characters who encounter them. They have no names, they never speak for themselves, and we know little about them – we are only told they are mystical and exotic, as well as potentially sinister and dangerous. Spoiler alert (highlight to read!): although the Indians do eventually reclaim their diamond, and return it home for a contemporary reader, the imperialistic overtones of the story are impossible to miss.
With The Jewelled Moth, I wanted to have a go at writing my own tribute to The Moonstone – putting a different spin on this classic story. But as well as having fun writing about my own mysterious cursed jewel, I wanted to explore what the story might be like if it was told from a different point of view. How would it feel to have your most important and valuable possession stolen from you – and what might happen if you had the opportunity to try and get it back?
That’s exactly the position of Mei Lim in The Jewelled Moth. Mei has grown up in her family grocer’s shop in London’s Edwardian Chinatown, hearing her Chinese grandfather’s old tales of the Moonbeam Diamond – a precious gem that was once the pride of the temple in the village in China where he grew up. The diamond brought the Lim family prosperity and luck, until it was stolen by a visitor to their village – a treacherous British gentleman. Years later, her family believe the diamond is long gone, but when Mei spots a picture of an elegant young society girl wearing it in a London newspaper, she knows she must seize this chance to try and return it to its rightful home.
Even though it’s a very different story, which explores some very different elements of history, I had a lot of fun paying tribute to The Moonstone in The Jewelled Moth. If you’re a fan of classic detective fiction, you might spot one or two of those references and hints (and for those who have asked whether new store manager Mr Betteredge is named after Gabriel Betteredge – he absolutely is!) I’ve joked that the book could be described as ‘The Moonstone for kids’ but as well as being an exciting detective tale that I hope will keep readers turning the pages, it’s also an attempt to tell a different kind of detective story – and to hear from some of the voices that are so often missing from Victorian and Edwardian literature.
Read more about The Jewelled Moth and the historical inspirations for the book.
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