What a treat to welcome Harry Woodgate into The Reading Realm today to talk about some of their new books!

Before we settle down in The Reading Realm for a chat, what’s your drink and snack of choice?

A flat white and a slice of carrot cake would be lovely, thank you!

Tell us about your book in three sentences and then three words!

In three sentences: Take a sprinkling of sabotage, a spoonful of suspense and several tantalising twists. Combine with more pastry puns than you can shake a baguette at, then add a diverse cast of characters with increasingly contrived baking-themed names. Finally, festoon with lavish illustrations before baking into a mouthwatering mystery that’s good enough to eat!

In three words: cakes, crimes, chaos!

If one of your characters could come to dinner, who would you invite and what would you cook them? What do you think you’d talk about?

Oh, this is difficult. From the Cinnamon Crumb series, I’d probably invite Aunt Tatin, who has lots of interesting and unusual hobbies, such as baking-themed yoga, playing squash (the sport, not the vegetable), opera singing and competitive knitting. I’d probably cook her a tart filled with goats’ cheese, caramelised onion and roasted squash (the vegetable, not the sport).

From Grandad’s Christmas, I’d like to invite Grandad’s old friend Viv, because she owns a bookshop called Over the Rainbow Books, and I’m sure she’d have plenty of tales to share. Obviously, we’d have a delicious veggie Christmas dinner.

What’s the funniest word you know that always makes you laugh?

To continue with the pastry theme… croquembouche. Because it sounds fantastic, and because it’s a pyramid of profiteroles glued together with caramel. What’s not to love?

What’s the silliest or strangest thing you’ve ever researched for a story?

For the second Cinnamon Crumb book, The Royal Biscuit Burglary, I spent an inordinate amount of time researching speed climbing, how to grow forced rhubarb, and exactly what might happen if you were dropped through a trapdoor into a giant vat of custard.

Do your characters ever surprise you?

Yes, all the time. Sometimes this is a welcome surprise, but it can be rather frustrating when it means I have to change entire sections of plot to accommodate their whims.

If your writing desk could speak, what would it say about you?

Have a break, for goodness’ sake. Also, tidy up.

Did you like reading when you were a child? If so, what?

I was a voracious reader as a child! I remember visiting my local library most weeks, and I started writing and illustrating my own stories very soon after, too. When I was very young, I loved Richard Scarry’s books, Mick Inkpen’s Kipper series, Nick Butterworth’s Percy the Park Keeper stories, and the Usborne puzzle books. When I got a bit older, I particularly enjoyed sci-fi and fantasy, including Garth Nix’s Keys to the Kingdom series, The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, the Percy Jackson and Artemis Fowl books, and the incredibly high-brow title, The Day My Bum Went Psycho by Andy Griffiths.

What’s your favourite book that isn’t yours?

Three middle-grade series I adore are the Nevermoor books by Jess Townsend, The Swifts by Beth Lincoln and Claire Powell, and the Strangeworlds Travel Agency series by LD Lapinski.

What book do you wish you could read for the first time again?

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel.

What’s the funniest thing a child has said to you?

During a ‘create your own mystery’ activity at a festival a few years ago, the kids collectively came up with a daring detective duo named Sir Hedgebert (a hedgehog with flaming dragon wings, a mohawk, a sparkly handbag and dangly earrings) and Sir Frogbert (a frog wearing a deerstalker hat who could shoot lasers from his eyes).

If you weren’t an author, what would you be?

I’d probably be working in-house as a designer or illustrator somewhere. But I’d love to run a café and community art space, perhaps with an allotment or courtyard garden out the back, and lots of author and artist events running throughout the year.

What BAD advice would you give to someone who wants to be a writer?

If I was giving genuinely bad advice, it would probably be something like ‘when you’re querying, don’t bother reading the agency submission criteria’, or ‘when you get your edits back, refuse to implement any of them because your first draft is already perfect’, or ‘it’s totally fine to work evenings and weekends to meet a deadline even if it makes you ill’. Needless to say, those are all very silly things that you should definitely NOT do.

SPEED ROUND:

Cake or biscuits?

Cake. Unless there’s no cake, in which case, biscuits.

Dinosaurs or unicorns?

Dinosaurs.

Pirates or astronauts?

Pirates.

Museums or theme parks?

Museums, but it depends what’s on display!

Cats or dogs?

Both!

Summer or winter?

Summer.

Aliens or robots?

Aliens.

THANK YOU Harry for joining us in The Reading Realm today!