I am excited to be announce that today I am participating in the blog tour for Peter Bunzl and his latest book Glassborn, which has been beautifully illustrated by Katarzyna Doszla.

Glassborn was inspired by the imaginary worlds created by the Brontë sisters. When they were children Charlotte, Emily and Anne would make up stories about imaginary places called Glass Town, Gondal and Angria. They would write these stories down in fairy sized newspapers.

Here is the blurb to give you an idea of what the book is about:

Fairy Tree, tall and grand, open a path to Fairyland.

The year is 1826, and the four Belle siblings arrive at their new home in Tambling Village. Acton, the youngest member of the Belle family, immediately befriends a bright, red robin, leading him to discover a hidden key.

That night, when the clock strikes thirteen, Acton is called to Fairyland. For in finding the key, Acton has become the Chosen One and must steal the Glimmerglass Crown, for the cruel Fairy Queen.

When Cora, Elle and Bram realise their brother has been taken, they set out on a quest to rescue him. But Fairyland is full of dangers…and to overcome the Queen, and her deadly curse, they will need courage, cunning and a great deal of hope.

An enthralling tale of magic, riddles, and curses, from the bestselling author of The Cogheart Adventures.

Blurb for Glassborn by Peter Bunzl

Peter Bunzl is a bestselling children’s author who writes about clockwork, hope and magic. His books have been translated into 16 languages and sold nearly half-a-million copies worldwide. He’s been nominated for numerous awards, including: the Carnegie, the Waterstones Book Prize, the Branford Boase and the Books are My Bag Readers Award.

My stop on the tour takes the form of an author interview.

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Hi Peter,

Welcome to my blog. I am thrilled to be part of your blog tour. I interviewed you for Writers’ Forum in 2021, about your writing process for the Cogheart series so it is really exciting to be able to interview you today on my blog.

Thank you for having me, Anita. And thank you for all your support for my books over the years.

Glassborn is the second book in your Magicborn series and is due for release on the 9^th November 2023.  Please tell us a little about Glassborn and how it continues on from Magicborn. What has happened in that 100 year gap?

Glassborn is a sort-of sequel to Magicborn, but, as you mention, it takes place 100 years later. For that reason, the two can also be read as standalone books, although they have a lot of magical and Fairyland characters in common. In the fantasy world of Magicborn Fairies live for hundreds of years, which means that some of the villainous and heroic fae from the first book are able to appear in Glassborn too. There are also some family connections with the human characters in the first book, but I don’t want to say much about that as it would be spoilers for the story.

How did you create such fantastically devious villains for the Magicborn series? Talk us through the planning process for your antagonist.

Both books have two villains, which is fun as you can have slightly different plots going on simultaneously. In Glassborn the two villains are the Fairy Queen and the King of the Dead. The children must face off against both of them to succeed in their quest. Both villains are not just evil, but also clever and tricksy; as Fairies are in these kind of tales often are. For the children, facing them is not a battle of strength but a battle of wits and intelligence, and of riddles and stories. It was important to me that the children succeed on these terms as the four of them are characters who are into words and fairytales.

Was it important to you to get the historical details of the real world correct in the series and if so what research did you do to ensure accuracy, if not how did you get round it?

Magicborn is set in the early Georgian period. Partly at Kensington Palace where the main characters, Tempest and Thomas, are brought to meet the King when it is discovered they have magic powers. That story was broadly inspired by a real Georgian boy called Peter the Wild Boy who was brought to meet King George I. So I researched that history before writing the book.

When it came to Glassborn, I wanted the characters to be based on real Georgian children too. I had read about the Bronte siblings and the stories and imaginative worlds that they created with each other growing up. I thought they’d be great figures to base my child characters on as there was so much information about them and their childhoods. To research their world I went to the Bronte museum in Haworth, and I also read some of their juvenilia. That content wasn’t suitable for my story, but a lot of their wider world was.

How did your create your fairy realm and the magical rules within it?

My Fairyland is inspired by the tricksy fairy realms of British folklore and literature, most especially Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell by Suzanna Clarke. Magicborn was also inspired by The Ballad of Tam Lin, which is a Scottish folk tale and song. Glassborn was inspired by The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, one of my favourite stories growing up, and the idea of mixing the four Bronte children up with the Penvensies and seeing what happened.  Angria meets Narnia, if you like.

Which part of Glassborn was the most fun to write?

I like the scenes with Acton in the Dead Lands the best. I suppose it is a little bit His Dark Materials, but really all of those ideas come from Greek Myths originally. Orpheus, or The Odyssey. It is a setting and a mythology I have wanted to write about for a long time, and I was able to get some really good twists and turns in there for this story, so I was very happy with how it panned out.

What is your favourite children’s book series, or series author?

I will say Narnia, because it was a favourite growing up, and it has a really big influence on this series of books. The imaginative world building in those books is great. The character stuff not so much. Also Diana Wynne Jones. I love her magical worlds, which are more quirky and chaotic than C. S. Lewis’s. And her child characters are often more real and nuanced.

What writing advice would you give to people aspiring to write a middle grade series?

Don’t set out thinking that’s what you’re going to do. By that I mean, even if the series will have the same heroes in every story, write each book as a closed stand alone, rather than part of a bigger arc. This is for two reasons. One, Children like complete stories, not massive cliff-hanger endings that they have to wait a year to resolve. Two, you may not sell all the book you have planned in your series, so you want each story to stand alone and not be reliant on a multi-book arc that you may not get to complete. You may also want to take the story in a different direction after a few books in a way that you didn’t foresee when you first pitched a series. So it is always better to keep the connection between stories loose.

Thank you Peter. It has been brilliant having you on my blog as part of your blog tour.

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You can find out more about Peter and his books on his website: www.peterbunzl.com or follow him on Instagram: @peterbunzlauthor and Tiktok: @peterbunzlauthor.

To follow the rest of the tour check out the schedule:

To read my interview with Peter Bunzl about his Cogheart series in Writers’ Forum take a look at: An interview with… Peter Bunzl

You can buy copies of all Peter Bunzl’s novels from your local bookshop, or online at uk.bookshop.org which supports local, independent bookshops.

I would like to thank Eve at Usborne Publishing for inviting me to take part in this tour. Thank you.