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Michelle’s Jamaican Red Peas Soup
If you’ve watched the video on this site of Michelle explaining how she wrote Fever Hill, you’ll know she talks about her favorite recipe, Jamaican Red Pea Soup. Well, here it is –very warming on a winter’s day – enjoy! Ingredients – 1lb (500g) casserole steak or shin of beef, chopped into smallish pieces –…
Read MoreWatch Michelle On BBC Breakfast Live
Michelle was BBC Breakfast’s special guest today as she appeared to talk about her new adventure series, GODS AND WARRIORS. On the famous red sofa with Simon McCoy and Louise Minchin, Michelle revealed some scary secrets from her global research trips… watch the full interview here:
Read MoreMassive Acclaim For DARK MATTER
Michelle’s hotly-anticipated ghost story, DARK MATTER, has been published in the UK to massive critical acclaim. “Dark Matter is brilliant” enthuses bestselling novelist Jeffery Deaver. “Imagine Jack London meets Stephen King. The novel virtually defines a new genre: literary creepy. I loved it.” “Compelling… direct… relentless” writes Helen Rumbelow in The Times. “Dark Matter is…
Read MoreMichelle Wins the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize
It has been announced that Michelle has won Britain’s most prestigious writing prize for children’s fiction, The Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. The award has been given annually since 1967, and is decided by a panel of authors and the reviews editor for The Guardian’s children’s books section. It is similar in status to the American…
Read MoreNight Voyage to Spitsbergen
A few years ago, I spent a fortnight traveling by ship around the entire Spitsbergen archipelago, and although I wasn’t then thinking about ghosts, I was so struck by the beauty and the desolation that I knew I would at some stage write a story about it. My first trip was in summer, at the…
Read MoreCreating A Stone Age Universe
The land is one vast Forest, peopled by small clans of hunter-gatherers. They have no writing, no metals, and no wheel. They don’t need them. They’re superb survivors. They know every tree and herb in the Forest. They know how to make beautiful, deadly weapons from flint and bone. They know the animals they hunt…
Read MoreTen Things You Didn’t Know About Torak’s World
Each clan believes that it is descended from its clan-creature. This is why, in OUTCAST, when Renn thanks the ravens Rip and Rek for helping Torak, she addresses them as “little grandfathers”. (At this point, of course, Renn doesn’t yet know that Rek is female.) Wolf loves lingonberries because his creator does. Lingonberries are sweet…
Read MoreResearching Wolf Brother
I want the reader to feel that they’re right there with Torak and Wolf. And that means research. However, it’s vital not to include too much in the stories, so I’m careful only to put in a tiny part of what I’ve learned: maybe as little as 1%. The challenge is to put in just…
Read MoreThe Wolf Inside Me
Since I was a child, I’ve read everything I could find about wolves, and the wolf talk which Torak uses is as close as I can get to real wolf talk. For example, when he asks Wolf to play, or muzzle-grabs him when he’s a cub, that’s how a real wolf might invite play, or…
Read MoreA Swim In The Fjord With Killer Whales
To get ideas for what the Seal Islands might be like, I went to the Lofoten Islands of north Norway, and stayed in a rorbu (a fisherman’s hut built on stilts over the water). I was there at the time of the midnight sun (when the story takes place), and spent several days roaming the…
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