Mountainfell by Katharine Orton ~ Blog Tour & Guest Post

Erskin and her older sister, Birgit, are the children of the mountain keeper – the guardian of their village. Living in the shadow of Mountainfell means living in fear – fear of the witches cursed with hex-magic, fear of the cloud dragon who terrorises the community, fear of the earth-shaking tremors radiating down from the mountain. When Birgit is snatched by the dragon, Erskin knows she must embark on the journey of a lifetime to find her and bring her home. What follows is a quest full of the unknown – danger, mystery and revelations that will alter every part of their existence. Ultimately, Erskin must answer the question, Did the monster come from the mountain or the other way around?

It is wonderful to welcome author Katharine Orton to Scope for Imagination with a special guest post about her inspirations for her feisty heroine, Erskin. Weird is definitely wonderful as she celebrates the courage of this girl who dares to be different.

Weird is wonderful by Katharine Orton

Erskin is the daughter of the Mountain Keeper, and she’s a bit weird. At least, that’s what she thinks. She’s awkward around people, she daydreams, she has no interest in the things the other village children do or talk about, and worst of all, she has a secret. Her secret is called… Scrat.

Scrat is Erskin’s pet cat. But in Lofotby, where she lives, animals are only ever kept for farming or for killing vermin – never, EVER as pets. This is partly because of the villagers’ fear of the strange, magical creatures who live on the slopes of the terrible and frightening Mountainfell, a place that Erskin ends up having to plunge right into when the most dangerous creature of all, the fearsome cloud dragon, flies off with her sister. So it’s understandable that Erskin feels out of place in the village she’s grown up in: the only world she knows.

But here’s my secret. Of all the characters I’ve ever written about, Erskin is probably the most like me. I’m a bit of a daydreamer too. I can get totally lost in worlds of my own imagining – so much so that I can easily lose track of what I’m supposed to be doing in the “real” world. I’m clumsy and forgetful. I sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) feel like a kid who’s pretending to be an adult. I can be quite awkward and a bit shy with people, and often feel like I don’t fit in.

So it was very important to me to take Erskin on this perilous journey, because I wanted to show her something else… another secret that I’ve learned: weird is wonderful.

It’s taken me a long time to realise that, actually, as soon as you start to get to know people, you discover that most of us are weird. All of the coolest people I’ve ever known have been ‘uncool’. These are those of us who embrace their own inner weirdness. But it’s hard when you are surrounded by people whose norms and expectations are so hard to live up to. Trust me, I know. And growing up is so very full of the perils of finding your place in the world.

So that’s why I took Erskin on a perilous journey in Mountainfell, through strange and unfamiliar surroundings, and facing danger at every step. Because really, it’s the friendships she makes, the acceptance she finds, and the things she learns about herself along the way, that end up being the most important. Well. That and her deadly mission to get her sister back from the clutches of a terrifying dragon, of course… A mission whose success hangs in the balance, and rests on Erskin’s shoulders.

We can’t all think the same and act the same, because we’re all different, in our own ways. And after all, it’s the people who don’t conform who can end up doing the bravest things; who can even end up changing the world. And to be honest, right now, I feel like that’s exactly what we need.

Thank you to Walker Books for inviting me to take part in this fantastic blog tour and for an early copy of this wonderful book!