“If you have read ‘The Shop on Peculiar Hill’…. then this will be a real treat… We meet new friends, see familar faces, and above all, dive further into this world where nothing is entirely as it appears. In all honesty, as soon as I’d finished ‘The Shop on Peculiar Hill’, I was desperate to get my hands on ‘Stranger Days’ – this is a world with absolutely no finite end point, and I hope this series just keeps going!”
This is a quote from the very first substantial review of ‘Stranger Days on Peculiar Hill’ by the blogger Radzy (aka Em) who you may remember also reviewed ‘The Shop on Peculiar Hill’. You can read the whole of her new review here – and the rest of this blog post of mine may make more sense if you do that now…
As with her previous review, I find this fascinating. Radzy finds things in my writing that I didn’t know were there! It is encouraging to realise that these stories may work in a way of which I wasn’t consciously aware. I simply describe the children interacting in a way that seems natural – often hearing them whisper the dialogue into my ear in the helpful way they sometimes do – trying to amuse or otherwise entertain in the process. But if this can help readers cope with a similar situation in their own lives, then that is quite a bonus.
It makes me wonder what else may be hiding there in the book that I don’t remember putting there. Perhaps there are new kinds of monsters I don’t remember creating… I’d better go and read it again just in case.
Many thanks to Radzy for the review – and for opening my eyes to my own book!
I’m sorry there’s still no paperback edition by the way. It was supposed to be out yesterday. I’m sure they’re staying up late at Amazon HQ to try to get it fiished. I’ll let you know when I hear.
Grimly Darkwood 