Himalayan Hostages
Thank you so much for coming to speak to us all. The students were enthralled, as was I! I have been reading your book with my own class and I was delighted by their gasps and giggles
Penny
Snowfed Waters
I have been enjoying Snowfed Waters as bedtime reading while we have been going through the turmoil of moving house. Reading this novel has given welcome periods of tranquillity. The author is to be congratulated on writing such a good story. I think that writing dialogue is very difficult but she has mastered it. I am convinced this would also make a good play or it could even be the inspiration for a block-buster film in the style of The Best Marigold Hotel but aimed at a much younger audience who would identify with the adventure. I definitely think it is worth great acclaim.
Dr Jim Waddell
Himalayan Hideout
In this second of the Alex and James adventures the story begins with the boys and their parents imprisoned by Maoists in Nepal, in filthy conditions. As they are being moved to a remote hideout, the boys escape and, with their friend Bim, they try to follow their parents, hoping to free them. This is a journey fraught with danger not only from the angry Maoists but also from wild animals and hostile conditions. Wonderfully accurate black and while illustrations by Betty Levene bring the story (and the animals) to life for the reader.
Himalayan Heist
This is an adventure story for adults and young adults. It is a breathlessly exciting page-turner, in the long tradition of quest stories.
The complex and shifting relationships of the three main protagonists – Alex and James, and their engaging girl companion Bim – are put to the test as they work their way through the beautiful and dangerous Nepalese landscape. They know what they have to do, but not what they will be required to face. Perils confront them at every turn, some natural, others man-made. The Nepalese landscape – presented in vivid and almost tactile clarity – can be beautiful, but also menacing.
In many adventure stories the characters are the main interest and the setting is little more than a lifeless backcloth; or the landscape is the writer’s real subject and the protagonists are anaemic stereotypes whose only purpose is to move the story forward. But here the characterisation is enmeshed within the action and the setting. Without noticing, readers find themselves caring about the characters, anxious when they are separated, comforted when they are reunited.
The author is a traveller. She writes about places and people she knows well, so there is an integrity in her writing and a total authenticity in the heft and feel of the story. So her accounts of the wildlife, the valleys and mountains and rivers, and the people the three main characters come across, have truth in them.
Victor Watson, editor of The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English