Daughter of the Flames, my second book, was published by Walker Books in March 2008.
You can get it from Amazon or Waterstone's or any other good bookshop. To the right is the rather gorgeous artwork by Steven Rawlings (with hand lettering by Jum Bunker).
I didn't think I could ever love anything more than I loved The Swan Kingdom cover, but they proved me wrong.
Candlewick Press published the story in the US in Feb 2009. This is the beautiful artwork, which has inspired me so much that I'm intending to get a tattoo inspired by it some time this year (don't do this at home kids, not unless your parents give you the nod).
What's the story behind this story? Well, after I finished my first book, The Swan Kingdom, I decided to take a month or two off to relax and catch up with emails, friends, reading, that sort of thing. Unfortunately for my plans, as soon as I typed 'The End', a new character popped up in my mind.
I tried to ignore her. I tried to tell her I needed some time off. I tried to ask her to come back later. She did not listen. She shouted for attention non-stop, day and night, haunting my dreams and shoving intriguing images before my eyes (this happens to writers quite often, and doesn't really mean I'm mad. Probably).
Gradually I came to know this extraordinary character, and her story became clear to me. It was like nothing I'd ever written before. When I finally gave in and began scribbling, I managed to finish the story in about four months flat.
As I worked I on this book I also worked out a lot of my frustrations about the fantasy books I was finding on the shelves.
I was puzzled and annoyed by the fact that practically no fantasy novels had main characters who weren't white. I never found any books that showed a mixed race relationship, even though these are an everyday thing in the real world. I had also noticed that characters with strong religious beliefs tended to be painted as the villains (and usually insane as well).
Something else that left me a little bewildered was the lack of heroines and heroes who weren't perfect. You never saw any main characters who had to struggle with physical disability like people do in real life, but who managed to save others anyway. There were lots of books set in the modern world that dealt with these things, but, as far as I could find, no fantasy.
The result of all these thoughts was Daughter of the Flames, a rather unusual book which I think will surprise people.
