When they reached the parting of the ways at the edge of the desert, it seemed to him that she thanked him, though he could not understand her words. She was not pretty, but her face showed her heart so clearly one could not help but understand her. As she clenched the grass between her bare toes, her smile was like the sun swimming through blue eternities.
Acknowledgements
Martin for accompanying me on cheese-making courses and into cave networks, and listening patiently to my incoherent burblings about monkeys and glowing carnivorous plants; Rhiannon, Deirdre, Ralph and Reuben for their invaluable feedback; my editor, Ruth, and the rest of Macmillan for letting me write a book that sounded crazy even to me; my agent, Nancy; Kathleen McGrath for copious information on sleep and insomnia, and for coming up with the idea behind the Morning Room; Professor Chris Idzikowski for his expert insights into sleep, blue light and the biological clock; Dan for letting me quiz him about brain lobes; Liz Wootten for inspiring an entire character by mispronouncing the word ‘kleptomania’; Felix; the Yarner Trust cheese-making course; the caves and cheese-making demonstration at Cheddar Gorge; the subterranean alleys of the Real Mary King’s Close; the Chislehurst Caves; the grottoes of Quinta de la Regaleira; the Hellfire Caves; Las Grutas de Lanquin; The Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam; the underground dwellings of Matmata; the Seattle Underground Tour; and the Legendary Black Water Rafting Company, with whom we floated down Waitomo’s underground rivers, stared at glowworms and jumped off waterfalls to our hearts’ content.
‘One of our finest children’s writers’
Nicolette Jones
Frances Hardinge spent her childhood in a huge old house that inspired her to write strange stories from an early age. She read English at Oxford University, then got a job at a software company. However, by this time a persistent friend had finally managed to bully Frances into sending a few chapters of Fly By Night, her first children’s novel, to a publisher. Macmillan made her an immediate offer. The book went on to publish to huge critical acclaim and win the Branford Boase First Novel Award. A Face Like Glass is Frances’s fifth novel.
Also by Frances Hardinge
Fly By Night
‘Remarkable and captivating, masterfully written and with a wealth of unexpected ideas . . . Full of marvels’
Sunday Times
Verdigris Deep
‘Hardinge writes with energy and verve’
The Times
Gullstruck Island
‘Hardinge is a hugely talented writer of tireless invention and prose’
Guardian
Twilight Robbery
‘Twilight Robbery has everything: fabulous characters . . . richly evocative world-building and writing so viscerally good you want to wrap yourself up in it’
Sunday Telegraph
First published 2012 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2012 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com/childrenshome
ISBN 978-1-4472-2594-2 EPUB
Copyright © Frances Hardinge 2012
The right of Frances Hardinge to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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A Face Like Glass Page 44
