One to Watch For

I’m looking forward to Advent, by James Treadwell, the first in a new fantasy trilogy to be published in the UK by Hodder in 2012. The agent’s website explains:

1537. A man hurries through city streets in a gathering snowstorm, clutching a box in one hand, breath rapid, casting frightened glances over his shoulder. He is Johann Faust, the greatest magician of his age. The box he holds contains something unimaginably terrible. After the storm abates, Faust will never be seen again, and in time men begin to tell stories about him – that he made a pact with the devil, and that the devil claimed his due.

London, the present day. Fifteen-year old Gavin Stokes is boarding a train to remote Pendurra in Cornwall, to stay with his aunt. His parents need a break from him. Gavin has just been kicked out of school; he’s always in trouble, not because he’s naturally disruptive, but because, as his parents tell him, he makes mistakes about things. He sees strange-looking people, when really there’s no-one there at all. He wakes up at night because he can hear things fluttering around in his bedroom. And then there’s Miss Grey, the silent old woman who has been Gavin’s companion for as long as he can remember.

Okay, James Treadwell is Godson’s Father. He’s also a great fellow with a keen love of literary fantasy and science fiction. The photo on his website makes him look Lilliputian, but he’s really more Brobdingnagian.