The first review - Ocean Without End

I've just got back from Melbourne (I visited my family and attended so many Commonwealth Games events that I need a holiday to recover).
While I was there, Rachel from the Eltham Bookshop sent this through: it's my first official book review, from the Chatterbooks Kids' Bookclub newsletter.

OCEAN WITHOUT END by Kelly Gardiner
Lily, a twelve-year-old girl, was taken by pirates during a raid on her island Santa Lucia. She was taken aboard the ship Gisella and she soon made friends with Cook, Carlo the cabin boy and many others. When the ship Gisella is visited, she finds out that she was working for the man who killed her father. A great read! 10/10. Reviewed by Erik Steller aged 10.

Thanks to Erik - I'm so pleased you liked the book - and to Rachel.
I'll make sure I get to Eltham Bookshop or the Bookclub next time I'm in Melbourne.

Writing adventures

I didn't really mean to write adventure books, but it makes perfect sense to me now.
What I like to do is to acknowledge all the great things about the tradition of adventure books, and swashbuckling books in particular - and then have some fun with it.
I like to pay tribute to the great novelists of the past, and I've sneaked in something in honour of each of my favourites somewhere in the Swashbuckler trilogy.
We don't read Rudyard Kipling much any more, for example, and as a man of the Victorian empire some of his ideas and attitudes may seem very old-fashioned. His writing, in the language of another era, can be hard to read. But everyone's heard of The Jungle Book, and maybe Kim or Captains Courageous, or seen the movies, even if they haven't read the books. I love how he used to end tales with "But that's another story". It's like starting a fairytale with "Once upon a time". It fills you with expectation.
That's an adventure story tradition.
But then, being me, and not really good at traditions, I sometimes like to take the genre and shake it up a little.
You know how fiendish pirate captains often seem to be Spanish? In movies of the 1960s they were the sort of evil genius who might have been played by Anthony Quinn (he was actually Mexican, but he was often called upon to play Greeks or Arabs or ... anyone with an accent).
What, I wondered, would happen if things weren't quite as they seemed?
What if the pirate was a girl?
What if the Arab was really Irish?
What if the dashing nobleman fell over a lot?
What if ...
Ah, but that's another story.

Shipping out

These great and beautiful ships, imperceptibly rocking like waddling ducks on tranquil waters, these robust ships, with their idle and nostalgic air, aren’t they telling us in a silent tongue: When are we leaving for happiness?
- Charles Baudelaire

Sneak preview

Here's the cover of the first Swashbuckler book, Ocean Without End, due out in six weeks.
The wonderful artwork is by Mark Wilson.