Helen Falconer

There comes a time in life, usually when you're in your teens, when you realise that things aren't quite the way you were led to believe. Parents are ordinary people with everyday flaws. Bad people aren't far away in some dark forest, they're moving among us, down our street, in our schools. They're close. Really close. It's the same for us all. But when you discover this for the first time it can be really shocking. It takes an age to figure out what's what. And if you have to fight it, then you don't hold back.
My heroes are the young people who meet young adulthood like it's a tiger jumping at them from out of a cave. But it's not a tiger, it's life, and you can't run away from your life.
 

I’ve been writing stories and poetry since I was in primary school. I grew up in London and Devon, in England. I had two coming-of-age books – Primrose Hill (4.5 stars on Amazon.co.uk) and Sky HIgh (4.5 stars on Amazon.co.uk)– published by Faber and Faber before moving to Ireland (where my husband Derek is from), and that is where we live now with twins Imogen and Seán and their older sister Molly. (Older brother Jack lives in Taiwan, where his late and much lamented wife Rachel died in 2016.)

Our traditional Irish cottage is very old. In the spring our tree-lined garden is filled with bluebells and swallows, and we live by a long field that leads straight down to a beautiful sandy beach and the sea.  Writers ‘write what we know’ and living in this beautiful place, the magic of the Otherworld never seems far away.

 

But it’s not all peace and quiet. We have an open house here and living with Imogen, Seán and Molly I am constantly surrounded by teenagers – and that's the way I like it. Having teenage children and living where I do made The Changeling an obvious book to write (I’d say ‘easy’ but writing books is never that). I hope you enjoy it!

My dad, Alun Falconer was a writer and movie director, so I suppose I'm keeping a family tradition going.