I have a guest post by the author for my stop on the tour.
Saffi knows she has to be patient with her brother Milo.
He’s only seven, and they both lost Mum to cancer a year ago. Now they have to
move in with Grandma and Grandad who run a B&B in Yorkshire. It’s a big
change and as Dad says, their grandparents are old and crusty and set in their
ways. Milo’s acting out the way Milo always acts out: he tells tales.
Well, that’s the charitable version. In fact, he lies. He
says he saw a boy with a gun on the beach. Lately, he’s been insisting that
eyes are watching him from a mirror in the hall. He claims the wallpaper is
changing and furniture is moving. Saffi is sick of Milo’s stories after more
than a year of listening to them. So when he says the B&B is haunted, she refuses
to believe him. That is until she meets a local boy named Birdy, who thinks
that this time, Milo might be telling the truth.
Did you ever want to have an older sister who truly fought
for you? Who’d cross strange worlds and face magical monsters to bring you
back? That’s Saffi. She might look like an ordinary twelve-year-old, but her
heart is as big as they come. Once you’re her friend, she won’t let you go – or
allow any mean old Fairy Queen to steal you away.
This is a story about being brave, even if it breaks your
heart. It’s about facing the truth, even when it’s unpleasant. It’s about doing
the right thing, though it’s difficult. When your family, and friends, and an
entire world of magic stand against you.
Saffi is an ordinary girl. She doesn’t have powers or know
about magic to begin with. Her family is an ordinary family that happens to
have made an extraordinary – and devastating – bargain. You really, really
don’t want to make the sort of bargain the True family made. Now, it’s her turn
to decide what that means to her. Will she accept the terms of the deal and pay
the price? Or end this terrible, magical bargain and risk the wrath of the
Fairy Queen?
Ten things about Saffi:
1.
She is brave.
2.
Loyal.
3.
Will do anything for her father and brother.
4.
Wishes she belonged.
5.
Wishes she had a friend.
6.
Is ready to give all that up and go it alone if
she has to.
Over the course of this story, she will:
7.
Learn to accept help.
8.
Learn to trust.
9.
Find out that ‘belonging’ isn’t all it’s cracked
up to be.
10. Understand her power.
I wanted to write about someone who feels broken inside, but
fights back and doesn’t give in. The older children in this book take
responsibility when the adults around them don’t. They’re heroes though they
shouldn’t have to be. I thought it would be interesting to set a fantastical
tale in a familiar world, full of recognisable problems: grief and loss, family
feuds, money trouble. What happens when you add magic to the mix? When all you
have to overcome it is your own heart, your courage, and a bit of help from
your friends?
Saffi’s story is a proper fairy tale in that regard. The
hero is just like you and me.
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Victoria M. Adams spent her childhood bouncing
between Cyprus, Canada and the US with her Iranian mother, trying to achieve
first place in the ‘Most Visas Acquired Before Age Eighteen’ sweepstakes. As an
adult, she carried on the nomadic family tradition by adding France and New
Zealand to the mix, where she worked as an animator, copywriter, tutor and
story coach, in no particular order. She currently shares her London home with
two humans and a feckless cat.
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