Frances Hardinge, and why you should read her

My normal state of affairs when it comes to new YA authors is mild despair and frustration at the lack of good editing out there. But every now and then, I find someone who makes me think that the golden days are not behind us and that the likes of Joan Aiken, Diana Wynne Jones and co do not represent the last high points of YA writing.

Frances Hardinge is one of those authors who restore my hope. I discovered her quite by accident, a very dear old friend asked if I had read a truly fabulous book about a girl with a goose. 'Not that I can recall,' I replied.

'Good, because I bought you one,' she told me.

She popped by and handed Fly By Night over with a look of smug assurance. 'You will like this,' she said. And she was quite right.

Mosca Mye, the heroine of the piece, is small, dark, unloved and orphaned, and not particularly remorseful about the fact that she has set fire to her uncle's mill as she sets off to rescue a stranger and escape the bleached dullness of Chough. Her father was a great man who had turned to his books after the death of her mother, by the time of his death, Mosca could read and write enough to know exactly what she was losing when the villagers burned his library.

The stranger is the silver-tongued and ethics-free Eponymous Clent, who has charmed his way into the society of Chough but has been revealed as a deceiver by a smooth-voiced nobleman. Mosca finds Clent in chains, and frees him on the condition he take her with him.

Unwillingly, Clent takes his small rescuer along on his escape, the both of them ably assisted by Mosca's only friend in Chough, Saracen, a thoroughly mundane and goosey goose.  They set off through a series of villages, all of which are  bound by their traditions and their superstitions, headed towards a capital that lacks a King or Queen, and which is squabbled over by dozens of pretenders. The power is held by the guilds, who control money, information and law. Only the coffee shops are free. Struggling to find independence in a world that has no place for her, Mosca simply wants to attend school and gain an education, but instead she finds herself caught up in the most dangerous intrigue of all, and unsure whether the man she rescued is a slight fool, or a dangerous murderer.

Hardinge's world building is astonishingly intricate, but wholly credible. The Kingless country with its bickering would-be royalty has a familiar feel to students of English history, as does the coffee-house-centred intelligensia. But it never reads as an Alexander Pope Tribute Novel, rather, this is a book of high adventure and thrilling action. Someone is killing people in a bid to gain power: is it one of the pretenders? one of the Guilds? or the feared and thought-dead Birdcatchers?

Most of all, Hardinge is a reader's writer. Her language is lush and rich, without ever veering into wankery.

The captain was a grim-smelling river-king named Partridge. There was something crooked in the make of his right wrist, as if it had been broken and never quite healed, and something crooked in the corner of his smile, as if that too had been broken and put back together slightly wrong.

I adored Fly By Night, and pressed it onto another bookish friend, who loved it just as much. I went looking for more books by the same author, and looked some more, and finally had Strong Words with the owners of several bookshops who had reams of Twilightery but no space for a genuinely good author. Happily, Amazon UK exists.

Verdigris Deep took some weeks to arrive, but was worth the wait. Ryan, Chelle and their older, more charismatic friend Josh miss the bus home one night and need money for a fare on the other route. A nearby wishing well comes to their rescue, but it is not long before the consequences are felt. The witch of the well demands that they fulfill the wishes for every coin they stole, so they set out on what at first feels like a merry jaunt. Soon, though, the darker wishes lurking beneath the surface ones make themselves felt.

Verdigris Deep (Well Witched in the US) confirmed my suspicions that Frances Hardinge is a Talent of Note. Set in contemporary England, it nevertheless has the same ability to quickly evoke mystery and menace that made Fly By Night so delicious. Those familiar characters from childhood, the creepy old family friend, the bullying older girl, the incomprehensible parents, all appear, but fresh and right, as they were for each of us in our own encounters.

Ryan, who narrates the story, flits between wanting freedom and wanting to be cared for. Between wanting to not be in trouble, and wanting to have it noticed that he is in trouble way over his head. He is such a well-written boy, all bravado and anxiety, and only when he starts to actually listen can he make sense of anything.

While the three characters form a trio that may seem a little familiar to HP readers, the dynamics are very different, though the friendships just as real and capable of being broken. And again, the language is crisp and captivating, drawing you in and keeping you close to the story as it shifts and twists. 

On a Responsbile Adult Note, if you are a parent of teenagers and want a book in which parents are depicted fairly and sympathetically, I can highly recommend this one. They are all flawed, but all people, and Ryan's set end up being little short of heroic.

For anyone who sheds a little tear at the rubbish written for teenagers today, grab one of Frances Hardinge's books. Her author bio is suitably sketchy and her fly-leaf photo sufficiently nondescript that I feel confident she is a slightly mad, thoroughly brilliant Person Like Us. And she's from Kent, which is next-door to where all the best people come from.

(No bushfire news today, it's still thoroughly gruesome but others are getting the word out. I needed a little normalcy here.)

Frances Hardinge, and why you should read her

My normal state of affairs when it comes to new YA authors is mild despair and frustration at the lack of good editing out there. But every now and then, I find someone who makes me think that the golden days are not behind us and that the likes of Joan Aiken, Diana Wynne Jones and co do not represent the last high points of YA writing.

Frances Hardinge is one of those authors who restore my hope. I discovered her quite by accident, a very dear old friend asked if I had read a truly fabulous book about a girl with a goose. 'Not that I can recall,' I replied.

'Good, because I bought you one,' she told me.

She popped by and handed Fly By Night over with a look of smug assurance. 'You will like this,' she said. And she was quite right.

Mosca Mye, the heroine of the piece, is small, dark, unloved and orphaned, and not particularly remorseful about the fact that she has set fire to her uncle's mill as she sets off to rescue a stranger and escape the bleached dullness of Chough. Her father was a great man who had turned to his books after the death of her mother, by the time of his death, Mosca could read and write enough to know exactly what she was losing when the villagers burned his library.

The stranger is the silver-tongued and ethics-free Eponymous Clent, who has charmed his way into the society of Chough but has been revealed as a deceiver by a smooth-voiced nobleman. Mosca finds Clent in chains, and frees him on the condition he take her with him.

Unwillingly, Clent takes his small rescuer along on his escape, the both of them ably assisted by Mosca's only friend in Chough, Saracen, a thoroughly mundane and goosey goose.  They set off through a series of villages, all of which are  bound by their traditions and their superstitions, headed towards a capital that lacks a King or Queen, and which is squabbled over by dozens of pretenders. The power is held by the guilds, who control money, information and law. Only the coffee shops are free. Struggling to find independence in a world that has no place for her, Mosca simply wants to attend school and gain an education, but instead she finds herself caught up in the most dangerous intrigue of all, and unsure whether the man she rescued is a slight fool, or a dangerous murderer.

Hardinge's world building is astonishingly intricate, but wholly credible. The Kingless country with its bickering would-be royalty has a familiar feel to students of English history, as does the coffee-house-centred intelligensia. But it never reads as an Alexander Pope Tribute Novel, rather, this is a book of high adventure and thrilling action. Someone is killing people in a bid to gain power: is it one of the pretenders? one of the Guilds? or the feared and thought-dead Birdcatchers?

Most of all, Hardinge is a reader's writer. Her language is lush and rich, without ever veering into wankery.

The captain was a grim-smelling river-king named Partridge. There was something crooked in the make of his right wrist, as if it had been broken and never quite healed, and something crooked in the corner of his smile, as if that too had been broken and put back together slightly wrong.

I adored Fly By Night, and pressed it onto another bookish friend, who loved it just as much. I went looking for more books by the same author, and looked some more, and finally had Strong Words with the owners of several bookshops who had reams of Twilightery but no space for a genuinely good author. Happily, Amazon UK exists.

Verdigris Deep took some weeks to arrive, but was worth the wait. Ryan, Chelle and their older, more charismatic friend Josh miss the bus home one night and need money for a fare on the other route. A nearby wishing well comes to their rescue, but it is not long before the consequences are felt. The witch of the well demands that they fulfill the wishes for every coin they stole, so they set out on what at first feels like a merry jaunt. Soon, though, the darker wishes lurking beneath the surface ones make themselves felt.

Verdigris Deep (Well Witched in the US) confirmed my suspicions that Frances Hardinge is a Talent of Note. Set in contemporary England, it nevertheless has the same ability to quickly evoke mystery and menace that made Fly By Night so delicious. Those familiar characters from childhood, the creepy old family friend, the bullying older girl, the incomprehensible parents, all appear, but fresh and right, as they were for each of us in our own encounters.

Ryan, who narrates the story, flits between wanting freedom and wanting to be cared for. Between wanting to not be in trouble, and wanting to have it noticed that he is in trouble way over his head. He is such a well-written boy, all bravado and anxiety, and only when he starts to actually listen can he make sense of anything.

While the three characters form a trio that may seem a little familiar to HP readers, the dynamics are very different, though the friendships just as real and capable of being broken. And again, the language is crisp and captivating, drawing you in and keeping you close to the story as it shifts and twists. 

On a Responsbile Adult Note, if you are a parent of teenagers and want a book in which parents are depicted fairly and sympathetically, I can highly recommend this one. They are all flawed, but all people, and Ryan's set end up being little short of heroic.

For anyone who sheds a little tear at the rubbish written for teenagers today, grab one of Frances Hardinge's books. Her author bio is suitably sketchy and her fly-leaf photo sufficiently nondescript that I feel confident she is a slightly mad, thoroughly brilliant Person Like Us. And she's from Kent, which is next-door to where all the best people come from.

(No bushfire news today, it's still thoroughly gruesome but others are getting the word out. I needed a little normalcy here.)