Castle of Shadows, January 7 2010 Orchard Books
'No clue about why the Queen vanished had ever been found. Until now...'
The day Charlie discovers a scrap of paper that could solve the dark mystery of her mother's disappearance, her world changes. Forever. Charlie and her friend, Toby, must race against time on a dangerous mission to uncover the sinister truth. But in this shadowy world of secrets and lies, there is more to fear than they can possibly imagine...
Castle of Shadows has a weird and wonderful history. The idea for this book came to me as an image: a picture of a king dangling upside down from scaffolding, building an enormous castle made of playing cards.
Ideas for stories come like that, flitting through your brain like ghosts. You have to capture them at once or risk losing them. Fortunately, I was at my computer writing something else when the picture of the king popped into my head.
Ideas are also like seeds and have to be left in the dark to grow for a while, so I didn't start to write the story for a few months. Then, just as I had written the first 50 pages or so, a writer friend told me about the Cornerstones Wow Factor Competition and urged me to enter.
I raced against time to finish the book before the competition deadline and I just managed to finish the first draft in time. I sent it off, but not with much hope because I knew most of the stories entered for the competition would not be first drafts, but would have been polished and rewritten lots of times. Imagine my surprise when Castle of Cards (as it was called then) won the Cornerstones Wow Factor!
That was back in July 2007, and although I got a two book deal with Orchard in March 2008, it took nearly two years and several rewrites before Castle of Shadows was finally published.
