NOMINATED FOR THE CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL 2015

watch the animated trailer

read a sample

Young Erin Dearlove has lost everything in a violent attack on her family. She now lives with her bohemian aunt Kate in a run-down Cape Town apartment block. Locked into a fantasy of her previous life, she shuns all overtures of friendship from her new neighbours, until she meets Mr Devilskein, the demon who lives on the top floor… and opens a door into another world.

Just as Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book reworked Kipling’s The Jungle Book for a modern audience with a liking for the supernatural, Devilskein & Dearlove is a darker, more edgy, contemporary reworking of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic The Secret Garden. An orphaned teenager is taken in by a reluctant distant relative, and in her new home makes an unexpected friend and finds a secret realm. It has shades of the quirky fantastical in the style of Miyazaki’s (Studio Ghibli) animated films like Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle (originally a novel by Diana Wynne Jones).

Alex Smith’s quirky imagination knows no bounds.

André Brink

Market: Young Adult and Fantasy adult crossover, precocious readers of 9 and over. Readers (young and old) of Neil Gaiman and Markus Zusak in particular will enjoy the mix of glee and horror, darkness and hope; while the story will also appeal to slightly older readers of Roald Dahl, Eoin Colfer and Lemony Snickett.

Alex has been blogging about secret gardens in Cape Town, read more here

Arachne Press editor Cherry Potts talks about Devilskein & Dearlove on Croydon Radio

Alex interviewed on The Good Book Appreciation Society

Alex Interviewed on Teen Librarian