It's allowed me to communicate some thoughts that I have about life, how good life can be and the beauty of life in what hopefully isn't a super cheesy way. You have your own voice as a writer and when you're acting a part that has been written by someone else, created by someone else, and you're coming in to bring yourself to the part, you can’t say things about life through the part necessarily. With a book, there's this amazing opportunity to almost give a vision of life and thoughts about how good and beautiful life can be. That's been nice. I definitely wreaked a little bit of revenge on some silly actors that I've known in my past through the character of Sir Hugo Gushforth - who was a very silly actor - but it's affectionate as well. It's not all like a character assassination by any means. What do you think you've learned about yourself through becoming an author? This book was so entertaining and the premise is just so charming. Rival families of merchants that create clothes or shoes or watches infused with spells and magic. This reminded me a lot of the Netflix movie "Slumberland" too (not really in concept but more in vibes) and I really loved that. Cordelia comes from a long line of magical milliners, who weave alchemy and enchantment into every hat. In Cordelia’s world, Making – crafting items such as hats, cloaks, watches, boots and gloves from magical ingredients – is a rare and ancient skill, and only a few special Maker families remain. But life as a magical milliner isn’t without its difficulties . . . This book, uniting historical and philological approaches, uncovers the remarkable lives and writings of these tradesmen, showing how they adapted to their new environment and reacted to the challenges they faced. It also presents a modern edition of the texts of the Hatmakers' guild book. A big thing about Ronald Dahl and Diana Wynne Jones is that their books are character driven. They always had wonderful, fully realised characters who made difficult choices and drove the story through their actions. The Hatmakers was 100% plot driven. And while there’s nothing theoretically wrong with a plot-driven story, in this case it meant that the characters had no agency of their own, and were very two-dimensional. They were pushed along by what was happening in the story and didn’t actually need to make any choices of their own, as the story pushed them in the direction it needed them to go. For example, the main character’s best friend, Goose, only actually did one thing in the entire book - he put up a sail at the end. The main character, Cordelia, is something of a Mary-Sue character - she is pretty perfect, has no flaws, is the hero of the day, helps everyone she meets to perfect their lives, and everyone loves her. It doesn’t make for a very interesting main character.

At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever. Enter a spellbinding world brimming with magic and wonder, perfect for fans of Nevermoor, A Pinch of Magic and Harry Potter. Beautifully illustrated throughout by Paola Escobar. What I loved about The Hatmakers was the emphasis on creativity with magical ingredients. This second book is an exploration of Maker magic itself, both light: Anyway, there’s the usual shenanigans and friends helping each other despite their families not getting along at all, Sam and Goose continue to be awesome, and the search for Cordelia’s father continues. We get to learn more about the villain and what they want and why. By Katie Teehan and Ali Pantony Do you feel like sitting here knowing that you've achieved this goal, is the proudest you've ever been of yourself?Imaginative . . . entertaining, comical and breezy, and the settings are conjured in transporting detail' The Times She never expects to stumble upon a secret society of Mapmakers - or to learn that magic isn't limited to the few Maker families, but is instead is all around, if you just know where to look . . . In many ways this has reminded me of Magicians of Caprona, a much older book by Diana Wynne Jones of Howl’s Moving Castle fame—mainly because of the different families with their magics and each seems to have their own “place” in the city—however this book has its own charms and I would have loved it just as much as a kid. (That’s petty high praise from me; DWJ is top tier fantasy.) I can just imagine Chrestomanci stepping into this world, too. In fact if anyone WANTED to write me crossover fanfiction I wouldn’t be opposed at all.~~~ I would say that I've always in my career liked to do my own things. Being an actor is an amazing adventure. It's so much fun, but at the same time there was a lot of spare time especially when you sign onto a show, a big show that has multiple seasons like Carnival Row, those contracts can be quite restrictive. You have lots of time between seasons where you're actually not really allowed to do a tonne of stuff so this is a way of fulfilling other creative parts of my soul, which actually acting doesn't necessarily fulfil. Actually right now I'm studying herbalism. You are studying herbalism! What has that been like? It’s an interesting idea, and I can see that the author was going for the zaniness and comedy ludicrousness of a Ronald Dahl book, and the whimsy of Diana Wynne Jones. But unfortunately it never reached those points.

Forgotten magic is like a flower in winter. It disappears down into the depths of the person, and anyone looking could be forgiven for thinking it had gone away completely. But it hasn't gone - it just has to be woken up again." (P.67) A world of many Makers—there are Hatmakers, Bootmakers, Glovemakers, Cloakmakers, Watchmakers and Cane makers. Hatmakers weave enchantments into the hats they produce allowing the wearer to be more focussed, brave, daring, violent, angry; anything! And the hats need unique ingredients—like feather of an owl for which you have to undertake a journey, storms in jars, moonbeams etc.Stories featuring strong female hatmakers have captured my heart since meeting Sophie in Market Chipping and this one is no different. Although this isn't quite the next Howls Moving Castle, it's an adorable younger sister to it and delighted my heart as much. Cordelia shares many of the same traits with Sophie: she's determined, loyal and unafraid of doing what's right. The escapades of Cordelia and her friends had me snort-laughing-out-loud, with some delightful twists and a queer romance subplot that just melted my heart. L’ambiance de la maison chapelier est géniale, un vrai clin d’œil au chapelier fou qu’on aime tant. Remplie d’accessoires et de couleurs, on aimerait y vivre.

Now, the magic in this book is really fun. One way in which is manifesting is in how the various families Make items. For instance, the Hatmakers imbue their hats with a variety of unique and oftentimes hard to get items--such as moonbeams, storms, and feathers from rare birds--that, when worn, can give the wearer feels of peacefulness, happiness, excitement, you name it. I assume this is also how it works for the Bootmakers, Glovemakers, Cloakmakers, and so on. I loved learning about all of the different trades and their methods of Making various magical items, as well as some tidbits here and there about past events that the Makers have been a part of. The Mapmakers delves deeper into the magic and Maker world that we are introduced to in book 1. It is darker, but also includes cute fireflies! The Hatmakers is even more delightful and beautiful than its cover--and I think that it's cover is spectacular. When Cordelia's father Prospero and his ship, the Jolly Bonnet, are lost at sea during a mission to collect hat ingredients, Cordelia is determined to find him. But Uncle Tiberius and Aunt Ariadne have no time to help the littlest Hatmaker, for an ancient rivalry between the Maker families is threatening to surface. Worse, someone seems to be using Maker magic to start a war. This book was fun! Cordelia is energetic, and super determined. Though I wish she had opened up to Sam earlier, Cordelia is seemingly tireless at trying to find her father, despite her family's disbelief. I loved how she, Sam and Goose finally got people to begin working together, though it did take things getting pretty bad for all Makers for that to happen.Lastly, the writing style. Although I liked both the plot and the characters, I think that the writing was definitely the star of the show. Tamzin Merchant's writing style is so magical and lush, with all these gorgeous descriptions that just made my reader heart so happy. It was also so easy to read and made my reading experience so enjoyable overall. I'm sure I would've devoured this in a day or two if life wasn't so busy at the moment. I honestly wish I'd been able to! Enter a spellbinding world in this soaring magical adventure, perfect for fans of Nevermoor, A Pinch of Magic and Rooftoppers.