Part two of Ian Irvine

GRIM & GRIMMER

            

                                                                                 

                                                                                                                         

1. The Headless Highwayman                                    
2. The Grasping Goblin
3. The Desperate Dwarf
4. The Calamitous Queen (coming June 2011)

Publisher: Scholastic Australia
http://www.scholastic.com.au/
http://onyabus.blogspot.com/

 

Ike and Mellie are definitely my favorite characters in the series, but I must admit to having a love/hate relationship with Con.  Which came first? The story  or the character Con, who is the desperate dwarf.

The story, definitely. I had most of it planned out in advance, but I struggled with the section in the dwarf city, Delf. My initial ideas about the dwarves didn’t work, so I changed them quite late in the story development, and that’s when the leering, smirking conman and huckster, Con Glomryt, appeared. He’s on the cover of The Desperate Dwarf and the brilliant artist, Martin McKenna, http://www.martinmckenna.net/, has captured Con to perfection.

Have you had a lot of, “Ew gross,” from your young readers who all love to seem to love that type of book?

No, not from young readers. I think they enjoy the gross-out moments, and take pleasure from parents and oldies being shocked, too.

I must admit to falling in love with all of your characters from Pook to Aigo. Have your readers also expressed loving your books so much that they loved all the characters, even the nasty antagonists?

I had a debate about this on my Facebook site a while back. A lot of readers love the nasty antagonists for their sheer, single-minded villainy. And after all, the antagonist is really important, because if he or she (or it) isn’t as strong or stronger than the protagonist, it’s really difficult to create a powerful and compelling story.

Tell us more about the GRIM AND GRIMMER series, Ian. I know there is one more book scheduled called THE CALAMITOUS QUEEN. Has a release date been set?

Awkward Ike, who is useless at everything except drawing, has just been expelled from school. He touches a magnificent pen and hears a girl crying out for help. Ike draws a door on the wall and finds himself in the land of Wychwold.
Within ten minutes he’s accidentally betrayed a princess to the wicked Fey Queen, Emajicka. Then Ike is caught and chained to a guard imp called Nuckl who wants to eat his liver. With the aid of a thief girl, Mellie, Ike escapes and they set out to rescue the princess.
But the Fey Queen is stealing the children of Grimmery for her Collection. She bathes in their nightmares to relieve her own, and there is one nightmare she wants most of all - Ike's. And She’ll spend much of the next three books trying to get it, while Ike is trying to stop her, and save Grimmery.
All is revealed in the final book, The Calamitous Queen, which has just gone to the printer and will be published in June 2011.

Will you write more novels for children after this series is finished?

I definitely will. I’ve loved writing for children over the last five or six years, and now that I’ve written several Grim and Grimmer books and seen how they make people laugh, I’m keen do a lot more.
I don’t have any ideas for a new series yet, because I’m furiously writing my next big epic fantasy series, The Tainted Realm. But towards the end of that, in a year or so, I’ll be thinking hard about my next humorous series for kids. If any readers care to tell me what they’d like to read, I’d love to hear their ideas.

Please tell the blog readers where they can go to check out all of your books, Ian.

I have a gigantic website, http://www.ian-irvine.com/, where readers can see all my book covers, read blurbs, reviews and first chapters, listen to samples of some of my audiobooks, and hear me read excerpts from several of my books.
This page tells readers where to buy my books http://www.ian-irvine.com/buy.html. They’re all available from Australia, and many from Amazon and Amazon UK.  If readers have questions, they can make a comment or ask a question below this blog post. I also have a large Facebook author site where I give away signed sets of my books every week, http://www.facebook.com/ianirvine.author, and readers can contact me there. And I’m tweeting the beginnings of these books, http://twitter.com/#!/ianirvineauthor.
It’s been lovely talking to you and I look forward to your questions. And Happy Reading!

It has been lovely having you here. And it has been a real pleasure getting to know you these past few weeks.Good luck with the rest of the tour Ian. :)

Here's the full schedule for the blog tour. Some of this has passed, but you can always go back and read what Ian had to say.

January 15, 2011                    

http://ripping-ozzie-reads.com/2011/01/15/a-guided-tour-of-book-promotion-with-ian-irvine/

Ripping Ozzie Reads              Book Promotion

March 9, 2011                         http://angusandrobertsonedwardstown.blogspot.com/

A&R Edwardstown                On Writing Children’s Fiction

March 21, 2011                       http://content.boomerangbooks.com.au/kids-book-capers-blog/

Kid’s Book Capers                 Review and giveaway

March 22, 2011                       http://deescribewriting.wordpress.com

Dee Scribe                               Writing Ike’s Character

March 23, 2011                       http://bloggingwithianirvine.blogspot.com/

Our Lady Of Lourdes School General Writing

March 23, 2011                       http://tristanbancksflow.blogspot.com/

Tristan Banck’s Blog              Creative Process/Workspace

March 24                                 http://www.kids-bookreview.com/

Kid’s Book reviews                Top 10 Writing Tips

March 28, 2011                       http://www.robyn-campbell.blogspot.com/ 

Robyn Campbell                     About the writing life and this book

March 28, 2011                       http://content.boomerangbooks.com.au/literary-clutter-blog/

George Ivanoff                       10 things I enjoyed most about writing this book

March 31, 2011                       http://content.boomerangbooks.com.au/literary-clutter-blog/

George Ivanoff                       10 things I found hardest about writing this book

April 6, 2011                           http://dcgreenyarns.blogspot.com/

DC Green                                Where the character and story ideas came from

April 11, 2011                         www.buginabook.com

Bug in a Book