Lucy Christopher woke up a Monday morning with her enthusiastic and bubbly personality. She kicked off by talking to Year 11 about Stolen, her debut novel which deals with a number of themes. In essence, it tells the story of Gemma, a teenager at Bangkok airport who has an argument with her parents and stalks off on her own. Catching the eye of an attractive older guy, they fall into conversation, he buys her a drink and her life is irrevocably changed. The drink is drugged and she is kidnapped and taken to the Australian outback where a tussle of wills, control and isolation begins. This is an exceptional book; very different and very challenging.

So how did a nice girl like Lucy come to be writing about the outback in Australia?  She was born in Monmouth and educated at Overmonnow School before being uprooted and taken to Australia when she was 10. Aussie High School proved to be a difficult experience and Lucy sought refuge in the school library and became a keen reader, thus sowing the seeds of her career – although she didn’t know it at the time. After taking her degree she moved back to the UK to take a Creative Writing MA at Bath Spa University.  Her second novel, Flyaway, was written as part of this course. Making use of her experience working for the RSPB in Newport, Flyaway is a very different book to Stolen, exploring a strong relationship between a father and daughter.

Lucy brings a fresh voice to teenage fiction and captivated her audiences ranging from Year 7 to Yr 11 with her endless enthusiasm and exciting delivery.