23 June 2008

Hello everyone,

I have another new book out this year! This is an exciting departure for me—it’s a murder mystery! A Beautiful Place for a Murder.

It is set in the lovely vale of Edale in the Peak District in Derbyshire. Sixteen year old Shaun Parker is a suspect in a murder at a lonely cottage near his house. Only Caroline, his girlfriend, believes in his innocence. Can they find the real murderer before the police charge Shaun?

The first review comes from Adele Geras: “Short and well-written. I could place myself in this book brilliantly.”

The book is dedicated to Milly Heardman, who is Edale’s oldest resident and a great inspiration to all of us, and I also thank my editor, David Belbin, a fine writer of crime fiction himself, and my publisher Ross Bradshaw. To find out more about A Beautiful Place for a Murder, click on novels. Order it from any bookshop or direct from the publishers: www.fiveleaves.co.uk/#latest pubs

And there’s lots more publishing news. Abela, the Girl Who Saw Lions, is now out in paperback, with a very eye-catching new cover. It is set partly in Tanzania and partly in Sheffield, and follows the lives of two very different girls, Abela and Rosa.

Following closely on the German edition of Abela (Das Mädchen, das Löwen sah) I can now show you the covers of three more foreign editions: America, where it’s called The Girl Who Saw Lions, Sweden and the Netherlands.

Aren’t they very different covers! There are more foreign editions to come soon. I’ll let you know. To find out about all my other foreign editions click research.

And I’m pleased to say that Abela is on two shortlists, for the Catalyst award and the Stockport award, and was highly recommended in the Red House awards.

And there’s more! One of my personal favourites of my books is Daughter of the Sea, and I was very disappointed when Puffin decided to let it go out of print. I’m very pleased to tell you that it is now BACK IN PRINT! Andersen Press have just published it with the original woodcut illustrations by Sian Bailey.

Really, these three books couldn’t be more different. Daughter of the Sea is set on a tiny island up in the Shetland Isles, and is about Gioga, a child who comes from the sea and is adopted by a fisherman and his wife. Three times the Lord of the Oceans tries to claim her back. Who is Gioga, and where does she belong? To find out more about it click novels, and order in the usual way.

There is a musical version of Daughter of the Sea which is available on CD. To hear some of the haunting music and to order it, visit www.sallydoherty.com

Another new edition is a new Japanese publication (Shogakukan) of Dear Nobody, my novel about a teenage pregnancy.

If you would like to buy signed and dedicated copies of any of the books or of the CD, you can also enquire at bd@books.com

More news. You may remember that I was lucky enough to be invited to write the libretto for Wildcat, one of a trilogy of operas for children performed by Welsh National Opera MAX last year. We were all very excited when the whole trilogy, which is called Earth, Sea and Fire, won the Royal Philharmonic Society Music in Education award this year. Congratulations to the whole team—it was a wonderful project to be involved in.

The first opera I wrote for Welsh National Opera, The Magician’s Cat, is being toured for the third time this summer.

Now to your letters, which were as ever, wonderful to read. Children and teachers from the Garnet Class in Pyrgo School made such a plea for Blue John to be republished, because they have produced fantastic work based on it and could only work from a library copy. I’m afraid Puffin won’t be republishing it and other publishers also say that children don’t like picture books with longer stories in them. I know this isn’t true, and I’m always getting similar letters from schools about Blue John. If only publishers would accept that schools really value picture books that can inspire art, drama, poetry writing and dance!

Many older children continue to read and write to me about Street Child. Thank you to Greenfield School in Leicestershire for their really moving poems inspired by the story, with terrific illustrations taken from Michelle Higgs’ Life in the Workhouse.

Ravenbank School in Lymm have also done some wonderful Street Child work. Some of them, like Amy Savage, wrote reviews: “The thing that makes this book great is the plot, combined with fantastic desciptions in nearly every paragraph. Even after finishing the book weeks ago I can still remember brilliant phrases like ‘her teeth were as black and twisted as the railings in the yard’ and ‘a man and woman as straight and thin and waxy-faced as a a pair of church candles‘.” Thank you Amy!

Children from the Convent of Mercy National School on Doon, County Limerick, have been reading Daughter of the Sea. I really liked all their letters and this is my favourite:

Dear Berlie,

My name is Katelynn Power. I am in 3rd class. I read Daughter of the Sea every day in English. I love it so much!

You are my favourite author in the world! My favourite character is Gioga because she goes on adventures and she is kind, friendly and bright and she likes Eilean’s stories and so do I! I never thought Eilean would kill herself. I saw your website and so did my classmates. All my classmates loved your book. It was really interesting. We didn’t know what was going to happen next. We were all screaming because of it. I loved the part where Gioga saw the selkies and swam with them. I knew Jannet was only protecting Gioga from Hill Marliner. I will look out for more of your books. Bye Bye

From Katelynn Power xxx

That’s lovely Katelynn. Gosh, I didn’t know my books made people scream! I’m sending you a copy of The Windspinner, and I hope you and your classmates all enjoy it.

The Windspinner, a magical story about Tam and the King of the Fairies, was published in March this year, and so was the Catnip edition of The Sailing-Ship Tree, an adventure story about twins Walter and Dorothy, young Master George, and Tweeny the little maid. I told you it’s been a busy year!

I’m working on a new book that is set in the past, so I’m busy with research just now. If you’d like to know what’s happening next, you can join my mailing list by entering your email address into my web wizard’s box below and he’ll get back to you. See below.

News on the personal front is that my daughter Janna has given birth to a gorgeous daughter, Kasia. You can see a picture of her in the family page, under research.

And my latest recommendations: Alan James Brown’s new book, Michael and the Monkey King is a great fantasy.Tricksy Monkey magics Michael’s parents to the Paradise in the West, and the only way he can save them is by accomplishing dangerous tasks. It’s exciting and also very funny. Go to Alan’s website to find out how you can download it or buy it. www.alanjamesbrown.com

And my musical recommendation is also downloadable. It’s Sally Doherty’s new album, Electric Butterfly, full of beautiful original songs that haunt your mind with her lovely voice and fine tunes. You can hear songs on www.myspace.com/electricbutterflymusic and buy an album on iTunes by clicking this button . Have fun!

Bye for now. Happy reading!

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