Deep Secret

"Yes. Exciting news for those of us who grew up on Wynne Jones: she wrote the occasional book for adults. And while her children’s books often have that ageless quality, it’s fun to see her in a specifically adult vein. It feels like meeting up with an old friend from school who has bafflingly become a grown-up in the intervening years. Her life as a fantasy writer clearly infuses Deep Secret, adding to the feeling that you are on some level hanging out with real adult Diana: it is all set at a science fiction convention. One of our two narrators, Rupert Venables, is seeking out a new senior magid among the attendees, who are innocently going about their convention business. I like to imagine she started this in a convention hotel room… Oh, not at all. The magic is very on brand. We’re in a magical multiverse. It contains Ayeward worlds and Nayward worlds, which can be crossed magically but at great peril. As ever with Wynne Jones, the workings for this feel both practical and under-explained – as though we are seeing them through the eyes of somebody down-to-earth, with no interest in constantly asking why things work. There’s a second narrator, a convention attendee, which leads to some fun twisty storytelling. Wynne Jones’s other dual-narrative novel is The Merlin Conspiracy, which is back to her usual junior fiction – but it is, in fact, technically a sequel to Deep Secret. So for anyone who read Merlin when they were young, there’s an added appeal."