Today I’m spotlighting a brand new chapter book for newly confident readers: ‘The Narzat.’ Full of laughs, adventures, and a curious cast of characters! Make sure to read author Luke Marchant’s piece about creating villains. Every hero needs a good villain to go up against!

“The Narzat lives in the Jumble Jungle Wood with his friends the LookyLizard (a feisty reptile who communicates through sign language) and the Chatty Chirper (a comically talkative bird who never shuts up). Little is known about how the Narzat arrived there, but he wears a necklace bearing a meaningful inscription. The Jumble Jungle Wood is full of animals you’d love to meet because they’re fun and friendly but some, like the roaring Ravenoserous are absolutely lethal. One day two villains arrive, Lord and Lady Snide armed with guns and a fierce desire for furs and the Narzat’s necklace. Can the Jumble Jungle Wood defeat the two awesome newcomers and their wicked plans?”

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Creating villains 

Who doesn’t love a villain?

Lord and Lady Snide are both horrendously horrid and thoroughly rotten, but they were so much fun to write!

The best baddies sweep on to the page of a book and instantly make you want to start booing… and read a little bit more about what they’re up to! You want to be repulsed and shocked by their actions, but also able to laugh at how ridiculously unpleasant they are.

I was conscious that I wanted there to be an absurdity to my villains’ cruelty, and I like to think there’s a comedy to how downright mean they are. When Lady Snide is squeezing tears out of a bird as part of her beauty regime it shows how callous she, is but it is laughably so. When Lord Snide has a misadventure with shushberries, there’s a bit of joy in seeing him get some comeuppance.

That being said, I still wanted my villains to pose a real danger to our heroes—otherwise, there’s not much point to them being there! Lord Snide with his weaponry and explosive temper is a real and physical danger, but I like to think the calculated cruelty of Lady Snide is the true threat (especially in a particularly chilling monologue near the climax). I wanted my villains to be dangerous—and keeping the balancing act between threat and fun was an enjoyable challenge.

At the heart of it all, was making sure that the Snides stood against what my heroes stood for.

For me, the Narzat has at its core a message about kindness, and how the best kind of bravery is standing up for others. The opposite of all of this selflessness? Greed, greed, greed! And who could be more greedy and self-centred than Lord and Lady Snide?

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Jo.

*Many thanks to Everything With Words for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour*