Hello! Michelle Paver here...

I thought it might be nice to get in touch every few weeks and tell you what’s happening with my books, and maybe expand on a few things readers have mentioned in their messages on my website.

But first: the heat!  Maybe, like me, you’re enduring a heatwave? I’ve been living like a vampire, creeping about in the gloom all day with my curtains and blinds down, then opening them at night. And for the past three mornings in a row I’ve been woken at four am by the outraged buzzing of a bumblebee who’s got herself trapped in my sash window. By the time I’ve rescued her I’m wide awake, so I head off for a walk in the woods. (I don’t have a garden, just an alleyway with lots of plants in pots, plus a small container pond which is home to three secretive frogs.)

The woods got me thinking about settings for supernatural tales. A publisher recently told me that readers don’t like being reminded of ghost stories in the summer, but I’m not sure that’s true. The other day I had a message from Valda in Suffolk, who’s been happily re-reading Dark Matter in the baking heat! And it certainly isn’t true for me as a writer, I wrote the first drafts of both Dark Matter and Thin Air during heatwaves.

I love setting my stories in remote wildernesses like the Arctic, or the Himalayas. Why? I think it’s because wild places awaken our deepest fears. The age-old terror of the dark - of being lost - of being stalked and hunted and eaten. And it’s interesting that many of you really engage emotionally with my settings; like Ed, who wants to make a journey inspired by Thin Air.

My new novel, Rainforest, came into being in quite an odd way. Back in 2021, I got writer’s block. I’d never experienced it before. All I knew was that I’d lost the urge to write and I had absolutely no ideas. As you can imagine, that wasn’t much fun. And weirdly, my dreams became incredibly vivid. In one particularly upsetting one, I was in my alleyway, tearfully berating a stony-faced woman who’d just poisoned my beloved pond.

I had no idea what that meant, and eventually, after enduring nearly a year of no writing, I realised that I couldn’t sort this on my own, so I saw an analyst. With her help I came to understand that for me, my pond means inspiration: it kept me sane during lockdown and some difficult family times since; in short, it helps me write. Three months into analysis, things in my unconscious started to shift, and I dreamt that my pond was full of animals. Then the idea for Rainforest burst upon me like a tropical downpour.

On which note, I think I’d better head outside and water my pots. I’ll leave you with a photo of one of my resident frogs.

Stay steady, and happy reading!

Michelle

P.S. Rainforest is published on 9 October, but you can pre-order a signed copy today on my website.

And I welcome messages or questions from readers: just go to my website and click on "Ask Michelle Anything".