Kingstone

Temple novice Katia wants nothing more than to become a priest in the Temple of the Triple Gods.

She tries hard to do the right thing, but she’s on her last chance to convince Elder Sevanya, the King’s Priest, that she can do the job. While she’s belatedly setting up the incense to prove she’s a competent acolyte, Katia overhears the king’s brother plotting to kill the king. She steals the Kingstone to protect it and to deliver it to the true heir with a message: the killer is after him too.

Not knowing who to trust, Katia keeps her mission secret. Her theft of the precious stone puts a price on her head and she disguises herself as a boy to undertake the dangerous journey across sea and land to the true heir’s palace. Doing the right thing just got a lot harder. Will the Triple Gods forgive her?

Longlisted for Leicester Book of the Year 2018

For a long time, I had wanted to write a book that contained a faith element to it. Various stories swirled around my head, but none seemed to click and I kept getting stuck halfway through, trying to build a faith system in my fantasy worlds.

The breakthrough came when I realised I needed to ‘write what you know’. I have a personal faith, so why not draw on my own experiences and build a faith system loosely based on what I already believed? As a Christian, I believe in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost - so why not have Triple Gods in my fantasy world?

Faith has often led people to break the ‘rules’ - smuggling Bibles over borders, for example in countries where it’s banned - and I wondered just how far someone would go, doing ‘wrong’ to protect their faith.

I put Katia in that position - wanting to do right, but having to do wrong to achieve it.

The first draft of Kingstone was written in a notebook, and took me 74 days to write. It’s the only time I’ve ever recorded my ‘writing days’, and the fastest I’ve ever managed to get a first draft written by hand.