Dogged novelist Frances Hardinge is no fly-by-night

Children’s author Frances Hardinge began writing when she was 13, determined to do so until "published or until she dropped dead." Seven books later she’s still alive, says Jonathan deBurca Butler

FRANCES Hardinge loves to walk. It was on “a trek through Thames Park, halfway across Richmond”, in London, that she happened upon “the key seed idea” for her award-winning novel, The Lie Tree.

“Rather frustratingly, I can’t actually remember the build-up to it,” says the 43-year-old, “but I can remember the moment itself. I remember thinking, ‘I really can use this. I don’t know what sort of emotional resonance I can get with it, but I know that something will fit with this idea of a tree that feeds on lies and bears fruit containing secrets.”