Books by Francesca Simon
Francesca Simon is a bestselling children’s author. Her books include both the Horrid Henry series and The Monstrous Child, which was turned into an opera and performed at London’s Royal Opera House. Her cantata The Faerie Bride, also with composer Gavin Higgins, premiered at the Aldeburgh Music Festival in 2022, and the story will be told in her forthcoming novel for adults, Salka. She was appointed an MBE in the 2023 New Year Honours.
“Ragnarok eventually takes place and the world is destroyed. At the end of it, there’s nothing left but Hel, and the world is beginning again above her. She finds that she’s able to get up into this new world and start over, creating humanity again. So it’s a wonderfully affirming story about how a child lives through the turbulence of adolescence and comes to the end of it. We don’t need the gods any more; it’s now the time for humans. We won’t have that sort of duplicity, that scheming, that endless back and forth between the gods and the giants. It’s just humans, who now have a chance to make a better world.” Read more...
The Best Norse Mythology Books
Carolyne Larrington, Literary Scholar
Interviews with Francesca Simon
Novels Based on Mythological Retellings, recommended by Francesca Simon
Mythological retellings bring us stories with timeless resonance, viewed through the lens of modern concerns, explains Francesca Simon. The bestselling author tells us about her five favourite retellings, and introduces her first adult novel and the rich world of folklore and legend that inspires it.
The Best Anthony Trollope Books, recommended by Francesca Simon
Anthony Trollope compared being a writer to being a cobbler and wrote highly readable novels that nonetheless exposed all our human foibles. Bestselling children’s author and Trollope enthusiast Francesca Simon explains her fascination with Anthony Trollope and recommends some of her favourite books by the Victorian novelist.
Interviews where books by Francesca Simon were recommended
The Best Norse Mythology Books, recommended by Carolyne Larrington
From The Lord of the Rings to A Game of Thrones and Marvel’s Thor, the Old Norse myths still resonate. Oxford academic Carolyne Larrington introduces her favourite Norse mythology books, and explains how the powerful old stories increasingly inspire modern retellings.
