the official website of Allan Frewin Jones

The Feathered Tree is a Young Adult novel in the mythical-realist genre. It is set in a contemporary North Devon town, but has roots in the ancient and mystical past of West Country folklore. 

16-year-old Polly Mutter loves nature, and her greatest friend is a beech tree, Fagus Sylvatica, which stands all alone on a small hill at the bottom of her garden. She calls it Tree, with a capital T, and she confides all her innermost secrets to it. 

When Tree is brutally hacked down one stormy night, Polly’s suspicions fall on a school bully and her spiteful gang.

Despite setbacks, Polly is desperate to get to the bottom of this act of cruel vandalism, but the truths she discovers on her quest send her far beyond the world of school bullies and into a secret realm where hidden things thrive in a reality stranger than anything she could possibly have imagined.

These discoveries will change her life forever.

It’s been a while since I posted here, but plenty of things have been happening behind the scenes. As I mentioned in my last post (s0 long ago now!), I have been busy with what is called “Ghost Writing”. My latest piece of Ghosting has been for a spin-off of the massively popular Beast Quest series of books.

When anyone finds out that I’m a writer, the first question they invariably ask is: “Have you written anything I might know?” As the person asking this question is usually an adult, I spent years replying, “No, probably not.” But once I started helping Adam Blade out with his Beast Quest series, I was able to say: “Probably, if you have a son who is between 7 and 10 years old.” Beast Quest has been growing now for over a decade, and there are more than a hundred books in the series, and at last count they had sold over 18 million copies worldwide. To have been involved in this phenomenally successful series has been a privilege and a joy – and to have been offered my “own” spin off series of 4 books was a surprise and a delight.

Let me explain how Beast Quest works. Adam Blade and a top-notch team of creative editors sit around a table, working out story-arcs for a new series (the books used to have a 6 book arc, now they have a 4 book arc). Once they have the whole thing planned out, Adam asks “ghost writers” to come in and write the actual books for him. This is not because Adam cannot write well – he can, he is a very good writer. But his workload is heavy, and the books need to come out to strict deadlines, and so other writers are brought in to turn the basic plots into fully fleshed-out books, while Adam concentrates on the more boring and tedious work of getting the books from the original concept to hard-copy volumes on the shelves of book shops across the world. (Trust me, I’d rather do my part of the job than his!)

For those of you who may never have heard of Beast Quest, it is set in a fictional semi-medieval world full of magic and monsters and wicked wizards, and follows the adventures of Tom and Elenna as they seek to free Beasts from the spells of various evil sorcerers and witches. The heroes travel to many strange realms in their quests, but all are of a similar kind – where Kings live in stone castles and dragons inhabit mountain lairs, and where the highest technology lies with the wheelwright and the smithy. Tom has a magical shield and armour, and Elenna is a dead-eye with a bow and arrow; Tom rides a white Stallion named Storm, and Elenna’s best companion is a wolf named Silver.

Imagine, then, my surprise when I received an email two years ago, telling me that the creators of Beast Quest had come up with a spin-off to be called Beast Quest New Blood, and that it was to be set in contemporary London – and that they wanted me to write it! I jumped at the chance, of course. One thing you learn very quickly when you become a professional writer (a person who makes their living from writing) is to always take any jobs on offer.

I was born and brought up in London. which I imagine helped when Adam was looking for a writer for the new series. But the entertaining aside, is that a couple of months before getting this offer, I and my wife Claudia and our cat Tallulah (known as Lulu) had just sold our house in London and have moved two hundred and fifty miles west to live in the coastal town of Bude in Cornwall. It is a beautiful place, and from my office window I see rolling green hills dotted with sheep and horses. The cries of gulls fill the air and if I look to the right, I can see the Atlantic Ocean. As I always wanted a home with a sea view, you can imagine how much I am enjoying this new life.

Also, for me, it was a bit of a “coming home” as my maternal great-grandparents were born in Cornwall – in villages on Bodmin Moor, about a half hour drive from where we now live. Claudia and I had been dreaming of this move for about 20 years, so it really was high-time to turn the dream into reality. Claudia bought a little business selling pet supplies and wild bird food, and I set about writing a few things I’d been thinking about for a couple of years. And then came the Beast Quest email, and my own ideas got put on the back burner for the time being.

Two of the books in this new series have already come out, and two more are on the way. If there are others, I will be kept busy, if not, I will have time to pursue other projects. Among these projects is a potential rewrite of a non-fiction book I co-wrote with a colleague some years ago: a guide to writing a chidlren’s book and getting it published. A lot has changed in the past few years, and we’re sure an update is needed.

MYTH RAIDERS - MEDUSA'S CURSE

Well, I’ve been out of touch for quite a while now – so especial thanks to those of you who have made contact with me recently via the website mail page – it’s always great to hear from people who have read and enjoyed my books!

The explanation for my prolonged silence is simple and fairly boring. I have been very busy working as what’s called a “Writer for Hire” – otherwise known as a ‘ghost-writer’. That is, I’ve been writing books for other people under other names. When you want to make your living from writing, you sometimes have to do this to pay the bills!

To be honest, I really don’t mind doing writing-for-hire work – it can be fun, even if my name doesn’t appear on the cover. (Often, my name will appear somewhere inside the book under the heading: “Special thanks to…”). In case you’re interested, what happens with writing for hire is that you are approached by a publisher, who has a series on the go, and who needs the books to come out more quickly than can be written by a single author. So, they hire various people to write the books for them – these will always be experienced writers whom they know will produce good work on time and on word-count – and who will follow very careful instructions. For instance, I’m working on a book now that has to be 8,500 words long. I have a chapter breakdown, explaining the story scene-by-scene, and my task, in a fixed period of time, is to produce a ‘first draft’ of the book. Then, a few weeks later, I will get the manuscript back with a whole lot of changes that the publishers want. I then have to make these changes and send the 2nd draft back on time.

Anyway, at the same time as working on that kind of stuff, I got together with a friend and colleague – a man by the name of James Noble – and we’ve been working on a new series together. We found an interested publisher in the UK – they’re called Little, Brown. For the past year or so, we’ve been honing the idea and plotting and planning and writing like crazy – and now, at last, the first book has hit the stores!

The series is aimed mainly at 8 to 12 year olds and is called MYTH RAIDERS. As usual, it has plenty of fantasy elements in it. The basic story revolves around two cousins – English-born Samantha (Sam) and her American cousin Trey. Trey is fascinated by archaeology and collects old artefacts, when he can afford it. He has recently discovered and bought a half-disc which was found on the east coast of Brazil. Sam’s mother is working in West Africa – and she has sent Sam a half disc discovered on the coast there – apparently quite old! When Sam goes to New England to visit her cousin for the summer, they compare discs and find they are the two halves of the same disc!

How can that be, when they were found a whole ocean apart? Well, it turns out the disc was buried when the two contents formed part of a massive continent millions of years ago – before continental drift separated them. The disc is crazy old! Millions of years old – but it has carvings on it – it was made by a person!!!!

That is weird enough, but when they put the two halves of the disc together, the cousins are sent back in time to the Mythic Times, where they encounter a very angry Medusa and her vicious harpies and a bunch of weird satyrs. Managing to scramble home again, Trey and Sam are confronted by a man who appears out of nowhere. He introduces himself as Michael First Lord of the Light – and explains that they are the Chosen Ones – warriors of the Light whose task is to find the lost pieces of the Shield of Light in order to fend off the attack by the Lords of the Dark. The pieces of the shield have been lost in the Mythic Times -and Trey and Sam must go back there to find them.

And thus, the cousins set off on their adventures. Book one takes them to Ancient Greece, book two sends them into Egypt at the time of the Pharaohs, book three sees them in Tang Dynasty China and the fourth book is set in Babylon at the time of the Hanging Gardens.

Well, thats what I’ve been up to! And now, with Myth Raiders almost finished, James and I are about to embark on another idea. I’ll keep you posted.

The first book is already available online in America, and in shops in the UK. It is called Myth Raiders: Medusa’s Curse. Because James and I have worked on this series together, we came up with a joint name for ourselves: A J Hunter. So, look out for Myth Raiders by A J Hunter. As I say, book one is already out there – book two will be published in May and book three in the Autumn.

Since my last post, I have been re-reading the Faerie Path books. I still have my fingers firmly crossed that I’ll find the time to write the wrap-up short story that I’ve mentioned before – the short tale that will (with any luck) tie up all the loose ends left dangling at the end of The Charmed Return.

Believe it or not, I haven’t looked at the six Faerie books since they were published – which means I haven’t cracked the first book for some years now. I have to say, I’m rather enjoying the process of reading them without having to worry about what to change and what could be done better etc. All too late for that now – so I’m just getting into the stories again.

My new American Literary Agent has arranged for me to get my own page on the online Encyclopaedia “Wikipedia” – so if you go to their site and type Allan Frewin Jones, you’ll see me up there. There’s no picture of me yet – the rules mean the photo has to be taken by a ‘third party’ – meaning I can’t use a photo I’ve had taken – so we’re still looking for something that fits the Wikipedia rules.

Apart from that, nothing new to report yet. We’ve had the first good summer for 6 years over here in England – but Autumn is creeping towards us now and I’m really looking forward to a Winter in our new home – with central heating.

By the way, just to explain again the Faerie Path situation for all of you who would like a 7th book. The problem is that I do not hold the copyright of these books. This means I cannot write another book without the permission of the copyright holders. The copyright holders will not authorise another book unless they have already got a publisher interested. Right now, no publisher is interested in a 7th book. There’s nothing more I can do about this – but I can post a ‘freebie’ story about Tania and the others online on my website – so long as I can find the time from making a living to actually write it.