Writer Frances Hardinge was persuaded to write her first children’s book by fellow Oxford author Rhiannon Lassiter, who then submitted it to her own editor at Macmillan publishers. The story, Fly By Night , won the Branford Boase First Novel award.
Her fifth book, A Face Like Glass (Macmillan, £6.99), is a stand-alone story set in the underground city of Caverna, with wines that can remove memories, cheeses to make you hallucinate and perfumes that convince you to trust the wearer, even as they slit your throat. The heroine, Neverfell, has no memory of her past and a face that shows her thoughts, which is so terrifying to the deceitful inhabitants that she must wear a mask at all times.