As a nine-year-old, I loved the Narnia Chronicles and then, to win a prize of 10 chocolate Mars bars, I read the Lord of the Rings in record time in high school. In my late teens I came to enjoy the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I enjoyed reading fantasy and watching fantasy movies too. But I didn’t think I would be much good at writing fantasy.

(I must confess I’ve only watched the first season of The Game of Thrones. I’m waiting for you to invite me over to watch the rest of it!)

I also enjoy writing for children. It began with A Children’s History of Malaysia, followed by History of Malaysia – A Children’s Encyclopedia. But I never thought about writing stories for kids.

Then, a couple of years ago, my publisher at Penguin mentioned that her daughter wished I wrote stories for children. That set the ball rolling. I wondered if I could write a story for her daughter. I ended up writing several stories and these stories came together as a novel called The Vanishing.

Photo taken after receiving the books from my publisher a few weeks ago

Then I decided the novel shouldn’t end there because there was so much more to tell. I still wanted to spend time with Min, who is ten, and Zen, who is twelve. And so I wrote two more novels Cemetery House and The Moonlight World which completed the Midnight Children trilogy.

(I wrote both novels during the first MCO in 2020. Not having any distractions really does help!)

The three books are best described as a spooky fantasy and I’ve received such great feedback. To be quite honest, I think the feedback is much better than for my adult tales!!