stack of books
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photograph of Beverley Birch

books

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Events for young people

About my books, my writing life, creative writing, about reading, or any combination of these.

Discoveries

Weird and wonderful facts about discoveries that have helped change our world

Inventions

Weird and wonderful facts about inventions ...

Transport

A feast of weird and wonderful facts about transport

Rift

In a vast African landscape, four teenagers and a journalist vanish ...

Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver is shipwrecked and washed ashore on the exotic island of Lilliput ...

Another novel

*NEW BOOK!*

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other test

*NEW BOOK!*

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novel test

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Novel 3

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Novel 4

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Frankenstein

FRANKENSTEIN-for-web-c

 

Frankenstein is known for creating a truly terrifying monster. But things are not always as they seem. Was Frankenstein’s creature always monstrous? Or did his life and loneliness change him?

 

A retelling of Mary Shelley’s classic tale of a scientist’s overwhelming ambition – and his dangerous blindness to the consequences of his actions.

 

 

Frankenstein-003-c

Illustrated by Rohan Eason

 

 

Here’s a short extract. Frankenstein begins to tell his story  …  

 ‘What I’ll tell you now will fill you with horror and fear. You’ll know of the terrible events that led me here, to this land of ice, searching for that demon you’ve seen.

You see, my friend, I was aflame with one idea, one purpose.

That to understand life, you must first understand death.

******

So began days and nights in dismal burial places, looking at the dead, studying how human bodies decay. I haunted these joyless places, until in the midst of darkness a blinding light broke into my mind.

I discovered how life itself begins. There came the day when I was able to make life, out of death, to make dead, lifeless matter alive again.

I went to graveyards, mortuaries, the dissecting rooms of hospitals. In secret, I gathered the dead matter I’d need.

Oh, the horrors of this awful, secret work!

******

I didn’t eat or sleep. My dream consumed me: to conjure life – out of death.

Oh, my friend! If only I’d known …

******

some pages from the book

 

[Frankenstein published by HarperCollins: Collins Big Cat]