There is cruelty in the world Eliza, you can see that, can't you? It surrounds us. It breathes on us. We spend our life trying to escape it.

There is cruelty in the world Eliza, you can see that, can't you? It surrounds us. It breathes on us. We spend our life trying to escape it.

He suddenly became convinced that if he didn’t do something sensible, something to put his mind to some use, then before he knew it he would be wondering round the streets having fights with himself and inviting domestic animals to social occasions too.

I like reading books about kids where there weren't really many adults, where they didn't need an adult to come and solve the problems for them. They could use their own ingenuity, use their own talents to solve whatever the issue was. And I like that still. I think that children want to read about heroic children. They don't want to read about children that have to be saved all the time.

Bruno: We're not supposed to be friends, you and me. We're meant to be enemies. Did you know that?

I like the idea of standalone novels. I always found with series of books, it's something that publishers love obviously because they can make a lot of money and they build an audience from book to book, but I don't like that as a writer. I prefer the idea of just telling a story, completing it within your book, and moving on and not forcing a child to read eight of them.

I was dropped by my publisher after my first two books. But I always believed in myself.