Children's Author
Helen Laycock
For each book I have written, there has been a nugget that has sparked an idea.
Sometimes, it will be a scene or vision in my imagination. In Glass Dreams, a circus mystery, I 'saw' a ramshackle caravan in the woods and wondered why it might have been there. Working it out led to a great idea for a story.
Here's a trailer for you to enjoy...
'What a wonderful, enchanting story you have woven here!'
Here is a short extract
Jake lifted the heavy lid and looked inside at the stiff, black velvet insert. It had been moulded to hold a sphere and, indeed, sitting in the bowl-shape hollow was an exquisite glass orb.
Jake placed his right hand on it and felt a tingle that zig-zagged through his fingers and made them a little numb. His eyes opened wide.
What was going on?
He felt heat rising into his hand and his head began to hurt. There was a deep tug at the back of his skull as if he were metal being drawn towards a magnet.
Jake removed his hand and placed it at the back of his head. Perhaps he should go down and ask Lily for a headache pill.
He stared at the ball, wondering what it was. Now, it seemed to be full of murky water. Or brown smoke.
He picked it up and cupped it in two hands. It was very warm. Right in the middle of the whirling mist there seemed to be an occasional glow of bright white light, but the moving swirls continually swept across it.
Perhaps if I…
Jake tried tipping it as if he were pouring liquid to one side and eventually the brown seemed to melt into the outside edges of the ball.
In the space that was left was an intense brightness, like sunlight.
Jake squinted into it, shaking his head to make sense of the distorted shapes that were forming. There were lines, vertical, horizontal, and the type that appear to curve in a criss-cross pattern like the shapes he had drawn in maths at school. It was most peculiar.
Is it a crystal ball? he wondered, and How come it was in Grandma Mo’s possession?
Jake pushed it back into its cradle and the glass became clear again. He touched it with his index finger. It was cold.
'Glass Dreams draws you in from the first sentence.'
And another...
That night, in bed, Jake looked into his crystal ball. He saw ribbons, discs and red and white sparks. Something familiar seemed to be scratching in his brain, but he didn’t know what.
'Rich vocabulary, a nail biting plot, characters who stay with you long after you put the book down'
Another little taster...
The patterns on the box were raised and intertwined like branches or twisted serpents. Jake closed his eyes and ran his fingers along the smooth shapes. The purple stones were almost iridescent when he looked at them, appearing to change colour as he tilted the box. The patterns continued underneath too. It was almost like a miniature pirates’ chest with black hinges at the base of the lid. Jake lifted it up and examined the underside. Footsteps pounded on his ceiling.
‘Shut up!’ he heard Sharon shout.
Between two tendrils Jake thought he could make out some initials, maybe a K and a Z. He pulled up the lid and curled his fingers under the ball, closing his eyes as the back of his head pulled away from his body as if a spirit were trying to get out.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw the same glimmer of light flash, intermittently peeping out through the rolling mist; it was just like cinnamon ink spreading through water, feathering into smoky plumes. His hands burned around the glass.
As it cleared, Jake caught a vision of white… like clouds fleeting across the sky. It was horses! White horses galloping, their manes flying, lifted by the wind.
Then the image faded and Jake was looking again at a clear glass ball.
'There is enough action, adventure, danger and mystery in this book to get my heart pumping, never mind a child's!'