Curse of the Silvan Oaks

Georgia Channon wrote her first story aged seven, about a frog who lived in a tree. Sadly, it didn't get published. As an adult, she pursued other things like acting and selling pyjamas. But she constantly imagined different characters and stories, scrawling ideas in notebooks. Out walking in woods or fields at dusk, she often dreamed of disappearing through the evening mist into another world or another century. When she got fed up of waiting for this to happen, she wrote her debut novel, The Curse of the Silvan Oaks. She now spends most of her time living in the world of Sacromund.

• Table of ContentsTitania Silvanhart’s Prophecy 91. Evil Visits Onda Castle 112. A Strange Discovery 173. A Castle Within a Castle 294. The Hidden Room 375. The Dark Tunnel 446. Kidnapped 507. Hecate Cobweb 568. All’s Well That Ends Badly 629. Hellebore Penumbra Makes Plans 6710. Zandor’s Decision 7211. A Visit From a Golden Cat 8412. What Is Your Name, Mortal Child? 8913. Escape 9614. Something Moving in the Hedge 10315. The Woodland Path 11416. The Black Wood 12117. Darker Than Black 12818. Titania’s Story 14119. The Dungeon Wall 14720. Much Ado About Quite a Lot 154

It is one of the paradoxes of fantasy that, in order to engage us, the fantastical must be rendered believable - and Channon achieves this by the luminous precision with which each twist and turn of her landscape is observed. She says she has been working on this novel for many years, and she writes with the conviction of someone whose invented world has become as familiar as the everyday.