Just like Ella, Candy Harper grew up in a rather small house with a rather large family. As the fourth of five sisters it was often hard to get a word in edgeways, so she started writing down her best ideas. It’s probably not a coincidence that her first ‘book’ featured an orphan living in a deserted castle.

Growing up, she attended six different schools, but that honestly had very little to do with an early interest in explosives.

Candy has been a bookseller, a teacher and the person who puts those little stickers on apples. She is married and has a daughter named after Philip Pullman’s Lyra.

You can follow her on Twitter @CandyHarper_