Today I’m feeling a little bit cross with myself. I have Mark Bowsher staying in with me to tell me about his book and I so wish I had said I’d squeeze in a review as I love the sound of it. Sadly, I just didn’t have time – but there’s always the future! See what you think!

Staying in with Mark Bowsher

Welcome to Linda’s Book Bag Mark and thank you for agreeing to stay in with me.

Tell me, which of your books have you brought along to share this evening and why have you chosen it? 

I’ve chosen The Boy Who Stole Time. It’s a real slice of escapism that I hope will fill people with excitement in the same way that The Chronicles of Narnia did when I was a child or as an adult reading His Dark Materials. I really wanted to create something dark but with lots of humour (every time I try and write something serious I end up adding lots of jokes!).

(The Boy Who Stole Time sounds wonderful. I really must add it to my TBR.)

What can we expect from an evening in with The Boy Who Stole Time?

Adventure! It’s a fantasy for everyone over the age of 8. I really wanted to keep guessing, for you to feel you’re really there. I used a lot of my own travel experiences in the book, particularly a trip to north Africa. I hope it’ll be something where people can escape into Ilir and be hooked for the evening. People often say to me that they can’t understand how I dreamed up things like the Black Palace, a living, breathing structure made entirely of people, but the truth is that the real world is weirder than you might think! The Black Palace was inspired by a documentary on ants who create similar structures out of their workers. The person in one chapter drawing a picture with a magnifying glass, burning the image onto a piece of wood, is something I actually saw in Morocco. The real world is strange and wonderful beyond what you might imagine.

(I couldn’t agree more Mark. Travel really does broaden the mind and is my favourite thing after books!)

What else have you brought along and why?

I’ve brought the Bob the Builder rucksack I bought in Alice Springs when I went travelling. My rucksack had broken and I was skint. A kids’ rucksack was the cheapest I could find and everywhere I went people asked why I had it. It started conversations when I was travelling all on my own. The Boy Who Stole Time is a book all about travelling so very far from home all on your own and a friendship with a stranger, the razor-tongued young girl-wizard Balthrir, is at the core of the story. I don’t want people to get to the end of the book, sigh and feel like they could never go to a magical world like Ilir. I want them to realise that Ilir is based the real world.  I’d love people to put down the book and feel like they should pack their bag and set off to explore somewhere they’ve always dreamed of going to. There are so many places to visit on our tiny planet and most are far less scary than you might think and everywhere you go you’ll meet amazing people.

Oh yes! I agree completely. I’ve met fantastic people on my travels from Antarctica to Zanzibar and I can’t wait to go travelling again soon. Thanks so much for staying in with me to tell me all about The Boy Who Stole Time Mark. I think it sounds absolutely brilliant.

The Boy Who Stole Time

When 12-year-old Krish finds out his mum is dying, he is desperate to give her more time to live. This leads to a deal with a devil-like creature to travel to another realm, Ilir, and collect the Myrthali – the essence of time itself.

Ilir is a tiny desert world where the days are a handful of hours long and there is magic and treachery on every corner. Here Krish is set three impossible challenges by the brutal King Obsendei to win from him the Myrthali. He joins forces with the razor-tongued, young girl-wizard Balthrir, who hopes to free her parents from the Black Palace; a living, breathing structure built entirely out of those subjects who have incurred the wrath of the King.

But as Krish battles these impossible tasks he may be about to learn that there is more than his mother’s life at stake as he gets embroiled in a blood-thirsty fight for power in Ilir that will push his friendship with Balthrir to its limits.

Published by Unbound, The Boy Who Stole Time is available for purchase here.

About Mark Bowsher

Mark is a proudly dyspraxic writer and filmmaker who has made over 100 book promos for a certain publisher named Unbound. He wrote and directed his first full-length play, Not the Story of Me, at 20 and went on to make three shorts which won Best Short awards (plus one Best Screenplay award) at festivals in the UK and the US. The last of these, Only One Person Will Like This Film, was picked by the BFI as one of their ’10 to try’ out of over 300 films at LSFF 2013.

He has written short fiction (The Pitch and I Killed Tristan Metcalf and Here’s How I Did It… ) for Lionsgate’s Fright Club ezine as well as articles for Den of Geek and Cult TV Times.

Since going freelance in 2013 he has created video content for Santander, Pearson, Choice Support, The Big Issue and MyLex as well as music videos (all based on concepts he pitched to the artists) for Nisha Chand, Ekkoes, Good Work Watson, Morgan Crowley and Go-Zilla. He recently wrote and directed the pilot episode for a sitcom based on his previous career in film marketing entitled It’s All Lies. He isn’t married and doesn’t live in Surrey but he did once climb a mountain dressed as Peter Pan.

You can follow Mark on Twitter @MarkBowsherFilm. You’ll also find him on Facebook.