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 The fifth book in the Adventuremice series is in UK bookshops now. It's called The Ghostly Galleon and has a spooky, autumnal, halloween-y vibe, with the Adventuremice investigating some ghostly goings-on on Bramble Isle. But are those real ghosts? Or are they just mice with sheets over them? People often say that children love scary stories, but I never did, and nor did Sarah McIntyre, so we try to make our stories as un-scary as possible, and any ghosts you may meet are more likely to be cute than terrifying. Captain Cheesebeard here is doing his best to be terrifying though... Sarah's artwork in these books goes from strength to strength, and the original paintings are all available through the Adventuremice.com website (you'll have to hurry though - they're selling fast). The website also features quizzes, videos, step-by-step drawing guides, and more. Meanwhile, Sarah's just finishing artwork for book six, which will be out next spring, and I'm writing b...

  Today, with a small but impressive drum-roll, and a barely audible fanfare from teeny tiny trumpets, we announce the launch of the THIRD Adventuremice book, Mice on the Ice . This time there’s a festive feel in the air: the sea around the Mouse Islands has frozen over and the mice are all getting excited fro their annual Frost Fair. But when the ship that’s sailed to the mainland to nab some festive goodies gets stuck in the ice, it’s up to the Adventuremice team to save the day. As usual with Reeve & McIntyre productions, the story was devised by both of us amid much giggling, then I wrote the words (with some help from Sarah), and we did the roughs together. Then Sarah spent MONTHS AND MONTHS drawing and painting the final artwork. I think she’s outdone herself this time - the chilly backgrounds make the interiors feel even cosier, and the colours really zing against the whites and greys of the ice. All the images are original watercolours, and if you’d like to buy one yo...

  My first two Adventuremice books with  Sarah McIntyre , based on her brilliant mouse paintings, are in the (UK) bookshops now. Otter Chaos introduces Pedro and the rest of the daring crew, and Mermouse Mystery sends them off on an underwater quest to return a baby mermouse to his subaqueous home.  But there’s MORE. A wintry story, Mice on the Ice , will be coming out in early September. There’s a long lead team on these books so Sarah completed the artwork for this one back in the spring - it looks absolutely gorgeous. And at the moment she’s busy painting the illustrations for the fourth book, which will come out early next year. In a break with the usual nautical theme we’re sending our mousey adventurers into SPAAAAAAAACE. Here’s Mice on the Moon ! And here’s Sarah in her studio with the original artwork. (Original artwork for the earlier titles is available to buy in her online shop.) The Adventuremice series is published by David Fickling Books and can be bought...

  Utterly Dark and the Tides of Time is on its way! The third book in the Utterly Dark trilogy begins on Utterly’s home island of Wildsea, in the spring of 1812. It begins with her keeping the promise she made in Utterly Dark and the Heart of the Wild to rejoin the Gorm in the depths of the sea. But the Gorm’s power extends not just throughout the oceans but through time too, and pretty soon Utterly finds herself in trouble in the strange, futuristic Wildsea of the year 1971. Meanwhile, back in the Regency era, her friends have troubles of their own. Cover art and interior illustrations are by Paddy Donnelly, and the book will be published in September. But it’s available for pre-order now, online or from you local bookshop. Please pre-order if you can: plenty of advance sales and sales in the week of publication make a big difference to a book’s chances. And please pick up Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep and Utterly Dark and the Heart of the Wild if you haven’t already. The...

There’s great excitement in the Mouse Islands, because today is the day that Otter Chaos is finally published. The   first of my new Adventuremice series with Sarah McIntyre is in UK and Irish bookshops NOW, and it’s looking lovely, packed as it is with Sarah’s beautiful watercolour illustrations. It started out as a series of nautical mouse paintings she did during the pandemic lockdowns, and you can find out more about it at our snazzy new website, adventuremice.com , which features videos, quizzes, drawing guides, and a handy classroom pack of free, easily downloadable resources for teachers . You can even read the first chapter of Otter Chaos  there for free there, to find out whether it’s Your Sort Of Thing. Several young reviewers have already decided that it is their sort of thing: here’s a very in-depth appreciation by six-year-old Jesse for Books Up North , while the discerning Peapod over at Bellis Does Books awards it an impressive ‘four hundred and eleventy hun...

Utterly Dark and the Heart of the Wild is one of my spookiest efforts, so here for Hallowe'en is a little excerpt, featuring one of the supernatural denizens of the Vale of Barrowchurch.    I’ve borrowed two pictures to illustrate it. The green lady above is by the brilliant Iris Compiet, from her book Faeries of the Faultlines, which features a host of eerie and unsettling beings. The one below is one of Brian Froud’s paintings from his 1979 book Faeries , with Alan Lee, which partly inspired the river girl and much else in Utterly’s world.  In the story, Utterly and her Uncle Will are visiting Barrowchurch as guests of his cousin Francis. Utterly's friend Egg has gone with them, and is posing as their servant... *  *  * Egg had been exploring too, although he had no guide except his own curiosity. It had led him first to the kitchen garden, and then into the large fruit-cages there, where he ate a large number of ripe strawberries and raspberries before...

The second Utterly Dark book, Utterly Dark and the Heart of the Wild , is published in the UK today! Here’s the magnificent cover illustration by Paddy Donnelly. As you can probably tell from Paddy’s artwork, this book isn’t concerned so much with the sea, which is what the first one was all about. This time, just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, it is …  But on dry land, magical trouble is lurking.  As usual I hadn’t planned on writing a series, and it was only when Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep was done and dusted that I started wondering if she could have more adventures. I wanted to know a bit more about Egg, so he gets more to do in this book, and there’s more of Will and Aish too. I grew very fond of all those characters while I was writing the first book, and I’d have been quite happy writing a sequel in which they just sat around and talked and went for walks on the beach, but I guess readers prefer it if something happens too, so I’ve thro...

Back in the Lockdowns my long-time collaborator and current lodger/studio mate Sarah McIntyre started painting pictures of nautical mice heading off aboard sailing ships and seaplanes for adventures on the High Seas. She turned them into prints and cards, but we always knew they’d have to have some stories of their own some day, and we’re happy to announce our new ADVENTUREMICE series, which we’re working on with editor Liz Cross and designer Ness Wood for David Fickling Books (who also publish my Utterly Dark novels). The first two books will be launched next spring, and you can read more details (and see more pictures) over on Sarah’s blog .

When I wrote Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep , I thought it would be a one off, like Mortal Engines and Railhead . But, as with Mortal Engines and Railhead , I had to create a whole world for Utterly to have her adventures in, and I found I didn’t want to abandon it when the book was finished. Wildsea , the island where Utterly lives, is part of a whole archipelago, the Autumn Isles, and it seemed a good idea to send her off to visit one of the other islands. The new one is called Summertide, and where Wildsea is a granitic Cornwall/Dartmoor sort of island, Summertide is all chalk downland and much more Wiltshire/Sussex-y. It’s also big enough that the part where Utterly is staying is out of sight of the sea, and the magic she’ll encounter is land magic rather than sea magic. There are standing stones, chalk hill carvings, burial mounds, a mysterious black stag, and a sinister vicar (which is the best sort of - fictional - vicar). And there’s also a lot more about Utterly’s fri...

  photo: Sarah Reeve Boredom is the most underrated of the muses. Back in 2019 I was spending a lot of time in the hospitals and nursing homes where my mother kept being incarcerated. Since she wasn’t often in a mood to chat, I entertained myself by starting to write a story in my notebook. It was all written it bits and scraps, a few lines one day and a few the next, but gradually it took on the outlines of a rather gloomy Gothic novel. Heavily inspired by the Cornish coast and by recent visits to Islay and Iceland, it was about a young man who gets summoned back to his family’s ancestral home on a remote island. I didn’t imagine anyone would want to read it, since it was more grown-up than my usual stuff and looked set to be utterly dark and depressing. Then I thought 'utterly dark' would be a good name for a character, so I changed the young man’s name to ‘Dark’ and had him arrive home to discover that he has an unexpected sort-of niece: Utterly, a castaway his late brother ...

It was always at sundown they were seen. In that twilight hour, when the walls between the worlds grew thin, strange things might slip through the cracks. Sometimes then, so the stories went, enchanted islands would appear in the empty ocean to the west of Wildsea…     I have a new novel coming out in September! The cover (above) is by Paddy Donnelly (who is also working on some chapter-head vignettes), and it will be published by David Fickling Books . Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep takes place in the early 1800s on the remote island of Wildsea. For centuries, the Dark family have acted as Watchers, keeping a look-out for mysterious islands which are believed to appear from time to time on the western sea, and guarding Wildsea against a terrible monster which is said to live on them. When the current Watcher mysteriously drowns, his young ward Utterly takes over his duties. Gradually, she starts to discover her strange connection with the forces which dwell in the de...