Questions for Celia Rees

[Mark Robson]

I imagine some here must have read books by the popular YA author, Celia Rees - she's certainly written a few. The covers of Witch Child and Sorceress have haunted me for several years now, but I've not yet got around to buying them. I met Celia on Saturday (along with lots of other YA authors - I won't name drop too much!) and I thought people here might be interested to know that her next novel is going to be her first venture into pure fantasy. I know that by reputation, her historical fiction is very good, so I'm looking forward to trying her work soon.

Celia has agreed to an interview for Chronicles just before the launch of her new novel (at the end of the summer.) I thought I'd start people thinking about it now and see how much interest there is in her work. If you have any questions for Celia, or just want to comment on books you have read by her, then I'd love to get some interest going before I conduct the interview in the summer.

I'm also hoping to convince her to pop in a couple of times to answer any follow up questions that people might have after the interview.

[Patrick Mahon]

Mark,

Perhaps a rather obvious question, but as you mentioned that Celia's next book will be her first "pure" fantasy title, I'd be interested to know why that is - i.e. why has she written this new book in the fantasy genre, a departure from her previous work?

[Mark Robson]

Noted, Patrick. I'm curious about this as well. Some of her books have had fantasy styled titles, (Witch Child & Sorceress are obvious examples) but have been written as 99% historical fiction wth 1% supernatural/fantasy. Her new book, The Stone Testament will be a major departure from this formula.

[fancying_fantasy]

My question for Celia is:

With so many pirate books on the market, was it hard to write something different from the others and to live up to the hype of the others?


(Feel free to rephrase my question to make more sense.)

Thanks for doing this Mark.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I just started reading Witch Child. I like it quite a bit so far.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Reading Witch Child I felt she had a good feel for the period and the temper of the times, so my question is about the research she did -- how much, how she went about it, what were some of her best resources?

I also have a question about Pirates. Pirates are, of course, enormously popular right now, and I'd like to know how far back her own interest in the subject goes, and whether books or movies originally provided the spark.

[Mark Robson]

Just finished reading 'Pirates!' - a damned fine book that I heartily recommend to anyone. However, I did find myself frustrated by her action sequences. They felt a little distant and lacked the tension and pace that I like to see.. There is no doubt that Celia is a first class author and I will learn a lot about descriptive writing from reading more of her work, but my books and hers are about as diametrically opposed as YA fiction can get when it comes to the style and emphasis of the story. I've gained a good few questions that I'm looking forward to getting answers to from reading this book. Have now moved on to Witch Child.

If you've not read any books by Celia, I would certainly recommend her work highly. Her research and attention to detail is admirable, and she tells a fine story.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I have another Celia Rees book on hand, which I hope to get around to next week, after BayCon and The Children of Húrin.

[Mark Robson]

Any last questions for Celia Rees? I'll be sending her the questions later this week. I've just reviewed her new fantasy novel 'The Stone Testament' here: The Stone Testament - Celia Rees and will have a lot of questions of my own to ask about how on earth she came up with something so darned clever!

[Cal20]

Just wanted to say that I absolutely loved Celia's book Pirates! and though I haven't had the time to read any of her others, I look forward to her new pure-fantasy one!

[fancying_fantasy]

I know this post is coming very late, ( I haven't been on in a while) but I was curious to know if you heard back from Celia Rees yet?

[Anatedhrai]

Not a question but a comment - I did enjoy The Wish House when I read it earlier this year. That wasn't really fantasy - set mostly in the 1970s.

[Mark Robson]

I fully intended to get around to sending the interview questions to Celia last year and for one reason or another, never got around to it. Thank you for the reminder. I'll try to get onto it very soon.