Here comes the lion!

Ooh, I am proper excited. Not only is Thursday World Book Day, but it is also the launch day of

THE SUMMER LION

which is probably the funniest, quirkiest, most satisfying thing I've written since Mistmantle. Simpler and shorter than the Mistmantle books, but probably the sort of book Padra, Crispin, Urchin and the rest of them would love to read, if the Mistmantle animals did read (which they don't.)

The Summer Lion evolved as so many books do. It came from quirky characters that Tony and I made up on long car journeys, like The Honourable Mrs Veronica Thumping-Jolly and her daughter Daffodil. Then in the course of a game of Scrabble I had a word that looked like a real word that wasn't. It was 'twide'. I told LYS about it afterwards and we both knew what twide would be, if it existed. I can't remember where the idea of a lion with false teeth came from, but I think it might have been something to do with Claire. (She's not a lion, and her teeth are all her own and considerably better than mine, by the way. But I think we once had a conversation about a lion with false teeth.)

Snapdragon Family Circus doesn't have performing animals, apart from Ma's dog and two horses that love showing off. They rescued Jampot the Lion from a circus where he was ill-treated, and he becomes Drina's best friend. So when she goes to Twidings to look after her Grannie Annie, he goes with her. She has a great time with her cousins Billy Will-do and Taffeta Fiddlestep. But then they find that the newcomer to Twidings, Gerbil Cravat, has plans that will destroy their lovely village for ever. They have to be very clever (and appear very stupid, sometimes.) It gets very serious, even when Taffeta can't stop laughing and Poodle falls over his own paws. (He's not a poodle, he's a cross between a deerhound and a carpet.) It gets a bit scary, too. But when your best friend is a lion, anything is possible. And the castle will never be the same again.

Cover image coming very soon.