A Q&A with Lucy Edwards

We spoke to blind broadcaster, content creator and disability activist, Lucy Edwards, about her new book, Ella Jones vs the Sun Stealer. This is an edge-of-your-seat, wonderfully twisty adventure mystery, perfect for fans of Percy Jackson and Skandar.

What made you want to create an adventure mystery?

I wanted to create an adventure mystery story because there hasn’t been an amazing cool blind protagonist at its core called Ella Jones and she is with her side kick Miss Maisie, the guide dog, how cool! Also, I’m an author with a lived experience of disability and it means that through Ella’s voice I can weave in different parts of my own sight loss journey but with a cool adventure twist. So, it just makes it so much more meaningful, so much more emotional and I think it also makes the adventure so much more fun and interesting.

Did any real-life people inspire your characters?

Yes, real-life people did inspire my characters. Ella is very much inspired by me, and Miss Maisie is very much inspired by my guide dog, Miss Molly. Miss Maisie is very much Molly reincarnated but in a book format. I wanted to get all of Miss Molly’s snorts and grumbles and the relationship between Ella and Miss Maisie is very much like me and Molly, my own guide dog. I love that! Also, Poppy, Ella’s sister, is very much inspired by my own sister. The relationship between me and her is so tight and I wanted Ella and Poppy to have that too.

What made you want to include Celtic mythology as part of the story?

Well, me and my husband have really random conversations before we go to bed at night, and he was telling me about the story of the Romans invading Britain. They went to Anglesey and came across a load of Druids. We took inspiration from that, and I thought: “What do I really want to happen?”. And I’ve been thinking for years and years about a protagonist who is blind that steals the light away or the light goes dark or something and I thought: “Oh my gosh, what if a God made the world dark? I love this kind of mythology, where are we going to go from here?”.

I always wanted Ella to not have superhero powers but something else in the adventure to be surrounding her that was very grounded in mythology, so she could really unveil what was happening and I just thought Celtic Gods were just perfect. The God in this book is the Irish Celtic version of the mythology because I wanted the connection to my family lineage. My mum’s side of the family, all my grandpa’s lineage, is Irish—we’re from County Mayo. I’m so glad he is an Irish God because I just really wanted that family connection.

What would your younger self think about you being a published author?

I don’t think I would have believed you. I didn’t see anyone that looked like me in the media, on my TV screen, or within a book. So, you know, when I lost my eyesight, I really did have that existential crisis that, you know, I wouldn’t necessarily amount to anything. And that sounds really sad now, just saying that out loud and I just still pinch myself every single day that I am able to do this because you guys believe in me and it’s just super cool.

What do you hope readers will take away from the story?

To be confident. To always be your true authentic self. To see the ability in disability. To be blind not broken. To understand, you know, no matter what happens to you in your life, you can always have that sense of adventure. And also, grief and loss don’t have to define you, it’s how you pick yourself up from those things that happen to you in life that makes you who you are.

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Ella Jones vs the Sun Stealer

“A thrilling 8+ adventure with a gutsy, determined protagonist” – The Guardian

12-year-old Ella Jones has been blind for two years and is navigating her new world with the help of her guide dog Maisie, her sister Poppy and her best friend Finn.

One day, on a visit to central London with her family, a light in the world is suddenly extinguished, causing panic and chaos as people are plunged into pitch black. A pagan god of light, Lugh, has been released from his millennium-old-prison by a shadowy villain and, out for revenge on humans, has brought darkness down on the world. But Ella is the hero the world needs: she is used to living her life in darkness every day, and is able to keep calm and work out a plan to defeat Lugh and return light to the world.