Saturday 17 February 2007

1: Welcome to Thomas Trew and the Hidden World...

And hello to all my readers! In this blog, I'll tell you a little about the series, how it started, about its characters, and also about the Hidden World itself. I'll be very happy to answer any questions you might have--and feel free to leave comments!

The series started in a really magical way. One night, I had a dream. And in this dream, I walked down a little street and came to a doorway which had a sign above it: the Apple Tree Cafe. I walked through the doorway, down a rather dark and narrow passage-way. There was a door at the end of the passageway. This door was green, and painted on it was a picture of an apple tree with rather gnarly branches and some beautiful ripe red apples on it. I opened the painted door, and straight away, a voice whispered to me, 'We are the Hidden People.'
I woke up at that moment, and lay there thinking that I must find out who these hidden people were, and what were they doing in the Apple Tree, and what was it all about? These hidden people came from a hidden world, that was clear. But what was this hidden world, and how was it different from ours, and how might you go there?

Then I thought of a story I knew, an old Scottish story which is called Thomas the Rhymer. He's a young man who one day goes to sleep under an apple tree and then suddenly wakes up to find an amazingly beautiful lady looking at him. She's riding a white horse. Thomas says, who are you? and she tells him she's the queen of Elfland, and she's going to take him on a marvellous journey into Elfland. So he gets up behind her on his horse, and she takes him into a magical land full of wonders. He spends a long time there and has all sorts of adventures. Then at the end of several years, he wants to go home again, and off he goes--but with a special gift the Queen of Elfland has given him. It's the gift of prophecy, and back home he becomes known as 'True Thomas' because all the things he foretells actually come true..

So the hero of my series is Thomas, too. Not True Thomas, but Thomas Trew. He's a descendant of Thomas the Rymer, as I called him, and he too is specially invited into the Hidden World(though not by the Queen of Elfland, as you'll see) and has many adventures there. But Thomas doesn't live a long time ago, like that first Thomas. He lives now, in London. He's nearly 10, his mother's dead and he lives with his father Gareth in a rather grey house in a rather grey street. People think he's rather weird, even his dad, because he sees and hears things other people can't. He just knows something wonderful is going to happen one day--and sure enough, it does!

7 comments:

Nell and Will Shepherd said...

Hi Sophie,

we love Thomas and can't wait for the next book. Thankyou!

Anonymous said...

What a lovely blog! Thomas Trew is going to get lots of hits I think...Love, Pippa xx

Nikki said...

A smart blog and interesting too. A bonus for Thomas Trew fans.
We look forward to reading Thomas Trew and the Horns of Pan

E15 kids said...

Lovely to see your blog. Great book. This week at school we are celebrating International Mother Tongue Day and learning how to say hello in some of the 36 languages spoken at our school. What is your favourite language for saying hello in?

Love from Finnbar, Colm and Marcella Keating

Sophie Masson said...

thank you all so much for dropping in and posting a comment. Glad you like the blog--and especially, the book! And hope you like all the others to come..
Finnbar, Colm and Marcella--that's a fun thing to do! My own mother tongue is French, so it's 'Bonjour' to you all! I do like Hello, too, and Selamat pagi (Indonesian for good day--I was born in Indonesia) and Buenas dias--my mother's part Spanish! What is your favourite?

Anonymous said...

Buenas dias Sophie(my mum and dad are both Spanish!)Just wanted to drop in and echo everyone else by saying how great we think the book is. It is jam packed with great imaginative characters and it has been great to have an insite as to how you came about some of them. I hope that Thomas' adventures have a happy ending - he is quite an amazing young man! Love from the Trews xxxx

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