More like some small, fierce bird of prey, something with a sharp bite. An owl perhaps, that speaks only when the rest of the world sleeps. Jenny will do well enough.

My world was changing, and I was not ready for it.

Water and stone Flesh and bone Night and morn Rose and thorn Tree and wind Heart and mind

I've loved fairytales, folklore and mythology since I was a small child, and I think it was inevitable that they would influence my style and my development of stories.

Good and bad; shade and sunlight, there's but a hair's breath between them. It's all one in the end.

This had been real: real in its flaws and uncertainties, real in its small triumphs, real in its compromises and understanding.

Hope is such a tenuous quality. To feel it and then to be denied what one most longs for ... Better, surely, not to hope at all, than to open the heart to a hope that is impossible.