Randomize ME

The Princelings and the Lost City completes the trilogy with kidnap, mystery, romance and biplanes.

I decided on the title when I first imagined a trilogy for my heroes’ adventures. As the trilogy developed I realised it was a male-dominated world so the idea of a hidden females-only castle was attractive, and it provided plenty of scope for my female hero to have some limelight.

Fred and George, my Princelings of the East, were my first-ever pets, and I confess I doted on them. But they were perfect gentlemen and I just wanted to write about them. Despite being guinea pigs, they were the philosopher and leader, and the engineer that developed in the stories. Sadly they died last year, but I’m so glad they live on in the books.

In theory I’m an energy efficiency and climate change policy researcher. In practice, writing the stories and promoting them as an independent author has taken over. Fortunately I’m freelance, so I can fulfill the interesting invitations that come my way in my professional life without it conflicting with the writing.

I think it’s quite likely that I ended up in research because I love writing; it gave me the opportunity to communicate with people about a subject dear to my heart. Maybe if I was starting out these days I’d go into science journalism.

Little things about my work creep in to the Princelings world though, like George’s strawberry juice power plant (fuel cell), Fred’s wind-mapping and the journals in which the boys are writing about their own research.

I’ve got so many follow-on stories bursting out of my head, featuring my current guinea pigs and my best friend’s!

The next book will be The Traveler in Black and White, which tells how Lord Mariusz came to explore the time tunnel and the Princelings realm in the first place. It’s a prequel, but it will be Number 4 in the series. Things get a lot darker in this book, and Lord Mariusz narrates it in a film noir/Humphrey Bogart style. It’s written in US English, and all the others are written in UK English, in case you wondered about the spelling of traveller.

If you like Anne McCaffrey,JK Rowling, JRR Tolkein, or fantasy books with animal heroes like the Fantastic Mr Fox or Wind in the Willows, you’ll probably like my book too.