Thursday was the big day! I had the best time so please forgive this update being a bit late!
 
To be honest, I do feel a bit like Feather Vane has had more of a publication season than ‘day’. In the first week of March, I signed copies for readers for the first time in Waterstones Croydon. Then many lovely readers who had pre-ordered the book received their books early! It’s been an absolute joy hearing what readers think of it and, honestly, so far people have been ridiculously kind and this very much helped to ease my pre-publication nerves!

​The other reason it feels like a publication season is that last week, I went on tour with Scottish Book Trust in Dundee and Angus, talking all about Feather Vane and Wolf Siren, disability representation, and getting the students to come up with their own fairy tale retellings.
 
It was amazing to go into a range of schools and talk about things I care about so much. The Scottish RNIB donated a braille copy of Wolf Siren to show the schools, too, which prompted some great questions from the students! (I got a lot of questions about my dog, Neville, and a student also guessed that I was 16 years old!).

​I had the best time, and Scottish Book Trust were amazing, looking after me and ensuring the children got the most out of the Inclusive Stories tour and I am so grateful to have been able to be a part of it.
 
The tour ended last Thursday, and I got the train back down to London and was straight back into the reality of life with an eye hospital appointment first thing on Friday morning. One medication change later and my eye was red, swollen, puffy and sore...
 
I have come off it now and gone back to my old eye drops – but my face is still recovering from the brief contact with the mean drop. Naturally, my face puffing up tied in with a video interview with Emma from Calibre Audio (an audiobook library for anyone who cannot read printed books). I love Calibre and the interview was very fun to be a part of and I will let you all know when the interview is available in case anyone is interested - you can listen to what I have to say and/or watch me struggle not to itch my eye the whole time!  

On publication day itself, I was on my way to Chapter 34, a lovely bookshop in Shoreham-by-Sea. But on the way, I popped into Waterstones Brighton and signed some books (thanks to Steve who very kindly humoured my excitement at seeing my new book instore and on the shelf for the first time). Once I got to Chapter 34, I signed and feather-stamped a bunch of Feather Vanes because Carmen and Emily very kindly have chosen it as one of their children’s bookclub books of the month! I naturally left some book marks there too, and I really hope the children enjoy adventuring with Morfran and Creirwy!

There is another thing I did on publication day, and that was to start listening to the audiobook of Feather Vane. For Wolf Siren, I was sent the files ahead of publication. But that didn’t happen this time, although I had heard samples from the chosen narrator, Claire Morgan. From those alone, I was SO excited to hear the whole thing. This is a big deal for me, because I am usually very hesitant to re-read or listen to my own writing – but honestly, I think the best way to enjoy Feather Vane is to hear Claire read it. I’ve listened to the whole book and she is simply perfect!

As an author, there are times where I have a very clear internal voice of how I think a character is saying something, or even how a sentence might be read aloud. It can be strange hearing someone else reading it – a bit like someone reading your phone number back to you and grouping the numbers in a different way so you barely recognise it – but with Claire’s read, even when she read it different to how it is in my mind, her version was better! If you are an audiobook person, honestly, I very much recommend listening to it. ALSO she plays Mrs Figg in the new full-cast audiobooks of Harry Potter and that, my friends, is an unearned claim to fame I will be using forever! 
 
On the topic of the audiobook, I also recorded a little authors note to go at the back (or the end?!) of the audiobook because my blatant favouritism for audiobooks meant I wanted it to have something extra compared to the printed book. When I got to the end of the book itself, I almost didn’t listen to my note (simply because it would make me cringe!) but I did and there is actually two chunks missing from it – so I have flagged that and it should, hopefully, be fixed soon!

One of the parts that is currently missing from my audio author's note is where I thank the reader (or listener) for adventuring with my characters, and I want to say it again here because I am so grateful to everyone who pre-ordered Feather Vane, or went into a bookshop to find it, or plans to read it. It means the world and I am very lucky to have such wonderful readers in my corner - thank you!

Finally, I wrapped up publication day celebrating with my family – who made the day feel more special than any birthday could!

​There are a few more exciting things in the pipeline that I cannot yet share… But stay tuned for more details soon…! And thank you once again for being here! 

With love, 
​Beth 

Ahhh! Wolf Siren has been shortlisted for the UKLA Book Awards!

This award is judged by teachers and I’ve happened to meet a few lovely judges during my school visits! They give a huge amount of time to reading and decisioning to make this happen, so a massive thank you to all of you!

This news has brightened up my week so much! (I’ve had a change in my eye medication since Friday and let’s just say it has not done my general face and comfort many favours, so this has been a beautiful morale boost!).

I’m so honoured to be on the shortlist and I am VERY excited to celebrate all the shortlisted books at the award ceremony this summer!

As always, thank you to Becky Bagnell and HarperCollins Children's Books for being the reason this book exists in the world! ❤️🐺

I can hardly believe it but it was just announced (against the backdrop of London Book Fair) that Wolf Siren has officially been SHORTLISTED for the CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR WRITING 2026!!!

Feather Vane has been chosen as Scottish Book Trust's Junior book of the month and they have 5 copies ready and waiting to be won!

​​All you have to do is answer one question...! Good luck! ​

Competition ends 11:59pm on Tuesday 31 March.

Yesterday evening, I sat down to write about Feather Vane. I planned to cover all the usual things: how I got the idea, where it all started, and the writing process. Only when faced with my laptop I was as blank as the word document. Please, PLEASE don’t misunderstand me. This book is incredibly special to me. I love it. I know the plot, its characters and their world inside out. I know its themes and why they matter. I have a document with 10,000 words of planning (and if you know me or have had the editorial misfortune of working with me, you know planning is not my strong suit!) But when I think back to my life at the time I was actually writing it, I’ve got nothing.
 
So here’s the thing, my life at the time of writing Feather Vane was good, great even! But I was processing stuff that was neither, and it turns out the result is that I don’t remember much about that time. This realisation threw me because for my first novel, Wolf Siren, the moment when I got the idea was so clear-cut that it has a whole origin story. I know the first scene I wrote and which words from that first draft ended up in print!
 
But Feather Vane is different, both as a writing project and a finished novel. When I think about the story, I feel calm and happy. I adored this world and its characters and creatures and magic. You might have noticed that I’ve said something similar in several posts already! I simply had so much fun being there, even if I can’t recall when or where I wrote what as I can with Wolf Siren.
 
And yes I am aware this isn’t normal! Realising I couldn’t remember how, when or where I started this novel, or much of the process after, freaked me out. Partly because when my memory isn’t blank, it’s usually pretty good! But after my initial wobble, I sat down to write about this instead (because that’s all I know!) and I realised that it doesn’t really matter that I don’t remember all the details.
 
Between notes, plans, emails and my camera roll, I can piece a timeline together of the things I’ve forgotten, but what I do remember is the heart of it… I remember the story unfolding, not the hours at the keyboard. I remember the details of my made-up world because being there was way more fun than being inside my own head. I remember the joy, the calm, the fun because that’s what I needed at the time.
 
For me, writing Feather Vane was like finding out escapism could give hugs. I love it for that, and I hope you’ll love it too!

It feels ridiculous (in the best way) to be writing this but... drum roll…

​It was announced today that Wolf Siren has been longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Writing 2026!

This award is a big deal in the children’s publishing world and I was over the moon to be nominated for it in the first instance. To now be longlisted is a huge and magical step and I cannot thank the Carnegie judges enough!

Wolf Siren would not be a book if it wasn't for the support of my lovely agent, Becky Bagnell, or my publisher, HarperCollins Children’s Books, and I am so grateful they saw something in this story. ❤️

I won't lie, this news has been the best kind of morale boost ahead of my second novel, Feather Vane, which comes out in March because the closer it gets to publication the more nervous I get about people reading it... But that said, I can't not shout about the fact that the lovely people at bookshop.org are donating 10% of all children's book sales to Book Trust and Scottish Book Trust this February as part of their #ReadItForward campaign! That includes any purchases of Wolf Siren and any pre-orders of Feather Vane bought this month.​