I love fantasy worlds and I wanted to write a story set in a magical forest, filled with all the wonderful creatures you might meet. I also love customer service! Back when I was a struggling artist I worked in a WHSmith store in Nottingham, sometimes on music and computer games, sometimes on children’s books, sometimes simply catching thieves.
I had a lot of fun helping and serving people, so it was obvious at some point I should write a book about being a shopkeeper. I just needed the fantasy angle to make it interesting. And so…
THE LITTLE SHOP OF MAGIC was born!
From the bestselling author and illustrator of Hotel Flamingo comes a charming and hilarious new illustrated book all about what it takes to run a shop for magical folk.
THE LITTLE SHOP OF MAGIC
When Vicky Lightfoot goes to work at her Auntie Wyla’s magical supplies shop in Twilight Forest, she must learn what it takes to make spells, source rare and magical ingredients and, most importantly, serve customers!
From frog people to trolls, badger wizards to little wise dragons, Vicky will meet and serve all sorts of hilarious, incredible creatures. But when a spell goes wrong, and she is left to work the shop alone on her very first day, Vicky will need all her wits about her to get through in one piece!
Listen to Alex Milway read the first chapter here, with all the pages illustrations from the book so you can follow along.
This is a truly exciting project for me. Not only will the book be something I’ve made all on my own, from concept to layout, but my readers can also choose to see their names in the Acknowledgements section of the book (check out the rewards on the sidebar!) And on top of all this, there’s also a very special bundle that includes an Hotel Flamingo print – something I’ve never done before.
All the artwork is now complete – I really loved drawing it! – and I’m just doing the finishing touches and final checks on the design and text. Once that’s all done, The Little Shop of Magic will be off to print 🙂
The Little Shop of Magic is available exclusively via Kickstarter currently. If you would like to get more information about how you can get a copy of the book in future (and for information on the next exciting Kickstarter project, you can follow me there or subscribe to my newsletter.
Update: The Little Shop of Magic, funded via my lovely readers on Kickstarter, is now available to buy direct from my shop.
