Raven

BE YOUR OWN HERO. Phoebe is a gifted hacker, living rough on the streets of Auckland. She's given a chance at another life when her idol, billionaire tech entrepreneur Melissa Cameron, hires her to track down a dangerous killer named Raven. Raven wants revenge on Melissa's team. He's mutating stranded Shadows into mindless monsters as part of a sinister agenda. Phoebe will have to look into the darkest corners of her city and confront her deepest fears if she is to save her new oddball family. Griffin's story is only just beginning. But before then, an evil called Raven was born. Before then, Phoebe worked with the Camerons to achieve the impossible. This is their story. Raven is the second book in the Shadows series, for fans of Pokemon and other tales of unlikely friendship between human and monster, but set against the backdrop of a darkly thrilling mystery. Interview with the Author Q: Is it true you started writing the Shadows Series when you were nine? A: It is! I think it was around that time that I started feeling the lonely feeling, that sensation of missing something, but I wasn't quite sure what. So I started telling Shadows as bedtime stories to my godsister, and it grew from there. I wrote countless drafts in the back of the class at school, and when I was fourteen I tried to get it published. It took a wee bit longer than that for it to get out into the world, but it feels so good that it's here now and people are reading it and each having their own unique experience of it. Q: If you had to compare Shadows to something, what would you compare it to? A: I hear people saying it reminds them slightly of Saturday morning cartoons, and it definitely carries that inspiration; I grew up with Beyblades, Pokemon, Medabots and those sorts of anime on TV, and also those old movies on VHS like Dragon World and The Legend of Galgameth, where the young human befriends a magical creature. Personally I think those comparisons exist because the soul-linked magical creature thing, what I like to call "monster buddy" fiction, is less of a genre these days- so I'm hoping that Shadows helps bring it back! I'd love more authors to be putting out books like that so I can read them. Q: So what other genres does Shadows fall into? A: It's a young adult thriller, amongst good company like the Hunger Games, the Maze Runner and the Chaos Walking Trilogy. It's definitely fantasy/science fiction, but it's based in our own modern time. I see it as less a typical fantasy adventure quest, and more so a thriller where the characters are running for their lives, being hunted, trying to survive just long enough to unravel whatever the heck the conspiracy is they've gotten themselves caught up in. It's emotional, thrilling, laugh-out-loud (I hope), and a lot of fun. Q: Be honest. Is Griffin Cameron based on you? A: No. He's much shorter. Q: Anything else to add? A: Read Shadows for Cirrus, the Fruit-Loops loving, slightly unhinged dragon-parrot. See, you've got to read it now. Thanks for reading!