#TheBoyMadeOfSnow @ThatChloeMayer #GuestPost

November 05, 2017

#TheBoyMadeOfSnow @ThatChloeMayer #GuestPost

THE BOY MADE OF SNOW

Chloe Mayer

published by W&N, 2nd November 2017

In 1944, in a sleepy English village, Daniel and his emotionally-distant mother, Annabel, remain at home while his father is off fighting a war that seems both omnipresent and very, very far away.

When mother and son befriend Hans, a German PoW working on a nearby farm, their lives are suddenly filled with excitement - though the prisoner comes to mean very different things to each of them. To Annabel, he is an awakening from the darkness that has engulfed her since Daniel's birth. To her son, a solitary boy caught up in the mythical world of fairy-tales, he is perhaps a prince in disguise or a magical woodchopper. But Daniel often struggles to tell the difference between fantasy and reality, and Hans has plans to spin a special sort of web to entrap mother and son for his own needs.

I am super excited about this book! The cover, the blurb - it's all so inciting and I cannot wait to get lost within the pages!

I am also super excited to welcome Chloe Mayer along to my blog today who is going to tell us all about the fairy tales which have inspired her and inspired this wonderful sounding novel!

Welcome Chloe!

For most of us, fairy tales are our first introduction to literature. In fact, it’s even simpler than that; fairy tales are often our first introduction to stories. And what twisted stories they are!

When I came to write my first novel, I found myself thinking about the stories that children are raised with. What effect might those dark, crooked tales have on their imagination? What effect might it have on the way they perceive the world?

When I was tiny, I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my mother as she prepared an apple for me to eat. She used to worry about me choking, so – as usual – she was peeling the apple with a sharp knife, before cutting it into child-sized pieces. But what was different about this occasion, was that the apple was red.

I’d never seen a red apple before. My mother always bought green Granny Smiths. As an adult, now, of course I think: Perhaps Sainsbury’s had sold out, or perhaps she fancied a change. But back then, I didn’t think that at all.

I hadn’t quite believed red apples really existed, because the only place I’d ever seen one was the drawing of a poisoned apple in my Snow White book upstairs. I’d assumed it was red because it was poisoned. On some level, I knew red meant danger; red meant stop.

And I watched, fascinated, as my mother carved away strips of that shiny ruby-red skin, then handed me a plastic plate with cubes of apple that now looked identical to what she usually served me.

I looked down at the plate. I looked up at her.

My eyes filled with tears as I asked: “Is this a poisoned apple, Mummy?”

She gasped, almost laughed, but then nearly cried herself when she saw the look on my face.

I really believed she was going to kill me.

That incident has become a family joke now, and my mother laughs about it. But the truth is that she wasn’t laughing back then. It upset her. She described the hurt, yet horrifically resigned look on my face. How ready I was to believe that she – who’d done nothing but shower me with love since the day I was born – was in fact preparing to kill her own daughter by feeding me poison.

But why wouldn’t I think that? All the stories seemed to be telling me that was the way the world worked. And all the poisoned apples were red.

My favourite fairy tale is The Snow Queen. The real story; the dark one. It’s about a boy who is taken away by the cold, and about a girl who desperately tries to melt his heart. But he loves the winter queen, and she loves him back, even though her kisses are like little icy deaths.

My novel, The Boy Made of Snow, is about a child who’s never quite stopped believing in fairy tales; he has never forgotten the darkness. I wondered how those stories would shape his view of the frightening world around him. And what lies might he tell when the distinction between deceit and storytelling can be paper thin?

CHLOE MAYER

Chloë is obsessed with facts and fiction. She gets her facts fix by working as a freelance reporter for national newspapers, and her fiction fix by either reading or writing it in her spare time. Earlier in her career, her work as a journalist on regional titles saw her shortlisted for various awards, including newcomer of the year and reporter of the year. She went on to work as a news editor overseeing several newspapers before becoming a freelance journalist.

She has lived and worked in Tokyo and Los Angeles and decided to try her hand at fiction in the US, where the first short story she ever wrote beat more than 8,000 others to win a prize and publication in an anthology. She was so surprised and delighted she immediately began work on her first novel.

After spending much of her twenties living abroad, she returned home to the UK and now lives in east London, not far from where she grew up.

You can find out more about Chloe here:

https://www.chloemayerauthor.com

@ThatChloeMayer

OR why not come and meet Chloe at my next book event? Click on the link below for tickets!