A Reprise of Some of My Reasons For Writing the Book

My book Penelope Parker: Witch in Training started rumbling around in my head a little over ten years ago. I played with it, wrote a couple of chapters, and made notes. Then Life intruded, and it sat collecting dust until last year, when I decided I wasn’t getting any younger, and the book was not going to write itself. (It did, but that’s another story.)

Penelope herself is based loosely on me as a child. I was gangly, a square peg in a round hole, and was mercilessly bullied. I also saw things others didn’t, and I’m sure my mother worried about me!

Gillian Barrington-Smythe, the antagonist, is also based on a girl I knew at school. She came from a rich family, and was spoiled and used to getting her own way.

The other characters just emerged fully formed from the recesses of my brain, and I’m not sure where they came from!

The name of the school Penelope was expelled from is also the school I went to in England, as is the name of the headmistress. Unfortunately, the school no longer exists; there is a council estate there now.

I love the Harry Potter series, but I always felt that a few more strong female characters would have been good, so I set out to do just that. There aren’t too many books in the fantasy genre that have a female as the main character, so Penelope was born, partly from me, partly from fantasy.

All the main characters are female, and the only males in the book are the fathers, Gwyddion and Marcus, Hecate’s brother, Paddy, and Jacob. I think that will continue, at least for the next book, and we’ll see what happens after that. I’m already working on the second book and hope to have the first draft finished by April if all goes well.

ADDENDUM: April is looking rather ambitious at this point! There is so much else happening right now, that the first draft probably won't be ready till Summer. The second book is titled "Chaos and Light", and continues Penelope's adventures.