Friendship, Mystery and Adventure: A Guest Post by Pari Thomson

By Pari Thomson / June 18, 2024 at 1:52 am

The second installment of the Greenwild series takes us right back into a wonderous world of plant magic and this time, they’re headed out to sea. Explore the growing world of Greenwild and hear from author Pari Thomson on what inspired her to write this series.

Hardcover $16.19 ~~$17.99~~

Greenwild: The City Beyond the Sea (B&N Exclusive Edition)

By Pari Thomson

In Stock Online

Hardcover $16.19 ~~$17.99~~

The Greenwild series is perfect for fans of Skandar and the Unicorn Thief, and book two continues the journey alongside its unique plant magic.

When I started writing Greenwild: The City Beyond the Sea, I knew that I was writing the middle book of a trilogy – and I was determined to make sure it didn’t feel like a dutiful bridge between the opening and closing chapters of the series. It needed to be more action packed, exciting, moving, and joyful than the first book, not less.

What I didn’t expect was how much fun I would have writing it. Almost without meaning to, I began to fill the book with the things I loved most as a child, and which I still love now with a deep, unreasoning passion. There are wild water horses called kelpies that gallop over the surface of the sea – drawing on my childhood love of riding stories. There is a traveling theatre troupe that sails across the Greenwild in a fleet of canal boats – drawing on my lifelong love of theatre and the rackety, glamorous world behind it. There are magical ships that draw on my love of classic sailing stories like The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. And above all, there is friendship and mystery and adventure, alongside found family and a deep, shining love for the natural world.

In The City Beyond the Sea, Daisy and her friends discover a hidden ocean kingdom called Iffenwild, which is full of marine plants and water magic. I loved the challenge of creating a city steeped in the enchantment of the sea: a place of dolphin-filled canals, glittering harbours, and spiralling shell towers. There are siren reeds that lure travellers to their deaths with their hauntingly beautiful music, and vast coral reefs that form protective barriers around cities. It’s a world that needs to be protected, however, as the villainous Grim Reapers of the story advance and the coral barriers begin to bleach. In many ways, the book is a rallying cry to protect the oceans – and the miraculous life within them – before it is too late.

I have just finished touring The City Beyond the Sea in the UK, and one of the greatest joys was seeing in children the excitement of returning to a world that they have visited before – something you only get in a series. The magic of return was something I felt very sharply while I was writing the second book: coming home to the world I’d created, while also enlarging it. My favourite addition was a new character, whose point of view alternates with Daisy’s. Max Brightly is twelve years old, spiky and angry and grieving – and I loved writing his journey as he explores Iffenwild and discovers his own story.

But the thing children loved most about the new book was a plant called a cumulapple, a tiny blue apple with clouds trapped inside it – which allows you to fly. Every time I described it, the children gasped. And I remembered all over again the magic of taking flight in your imagination, into a world where anything is possible.