The Bookseller - Author Interviews - Jordan Lees | 'What I really wanted to do was capture the spirit of the books that I loved as a kid'

Though in reality The Whisperwicks, a novel about a boy who falls into a magical, labyrinthine world and goes on a quest to find a missing child, is the culmination of a process that has been brewing for a much longer period of time. Lees, a self-confessed quiet and bookish child, first began writing a book about a magical doll (Benjamiah, the hero of The Whisperwicks, has a "poppet") as a teenager, and he then spent 10 years living in that imaginary world. An early attempt at getting the story on paper in his early 20s didn't work, but about four years ago he got a draft down on paper and the journey to getting a massive publishing deal was set in motion.