[laughs]

[laughs] Thank you.

And it's, uh, um, as, as you know, it's inspired by my daughter, Harriet, um, and also inspired by, uh, 10th century Eastern European, uh, kind of history and mythology and folklore, specifically Slavic, um, mythology and ho- ho- and folklore, and, uh, kind of a historical period where the, um, the Kingdom of the Rus' was in its infancy, um, which was founded really by Swedish Vikings that were rowing south from, um, from the Baltic Sea down to Constantinople to, um, to earn some money, either to sell, to trade and sell their wares, or to, uh, s- to, uh, sell their swords, um, join the Emperor's Varangian Guard.

But they kind of stopped at around the area of Kyiv, which is now K- um, Ukraine, and kind of set up a base of operations there and founded a kingdom.

Um, and this, so this, this story is set in that, that kind of histo- historical period, and the, and the kind of the conflicts they were having with the local Slavic tribes.

Um, and there's, there's a family at the heart of it who belong to a S- Slavic tribe.

Uh, their daughter is profoundly disabled, um, and she has kind of budding powers that she, she doesn't even realize they are powers when the, the book starts.

What inspired you to make your book an illustrated edition? And then also, how did you decide which scenes you wanted to include?

Yes,

absolutely.

I mean, I grew up...

A lot of my writing, really, is what's...

It's just...

It's coming out of what I am passionate about, and that really came from growing up, my childhood, all the things that I soaked up as a child.

And one of the things is that my dad, you know... very nostalgic, wonderful memories of sitting down with my dad and he'd always say, oh, John, you need to watch this film.

Can you give us a tease of how are you dealing with this different mythology? And what sort of attracted you to this change of setting and how do you want to tackle