Here words can kill - literally.

But magic, like everything else, follows certain natural laws. Magic needs energy wherever it can find it. If no other source of energy is available, it will take the life force of the magician who created it. That is why every use of magic weakens the magician.

I've published over 100 books - and that is divided about 50/50 adult and young adult. Lately, I have been writing more YA, which is such a great genre to write it. I don't have a favourite (I usually say it's the last book I've written), but certain books do stick in the mind. My very first YA novel, The Children of Lir, will always be special to me, and, of course The Alchemyst because it was a series I'd wanted to write for ages.

When I said that I was king of forwards, you've got to understand that I don't come up with this stuff. I just forward it along. You wouldn't arrest a guy who was just passing drugs from one guy to another.

Ah. In my experience, when people say they don't know whether they love someone, they usually mean no.

Most writers, I'm afraid, live very boring lives sitting in front of a screen. However, having said that: every writer puts a bit of themselves into the characters to bring them alive.

Adults, Sophie has decided a long time before, were really bad at making up good excuses.