IN DEPTH
Author Interview Jessie Burton
Jessie Burton discusses her new middle-grade tale, a story of love and loss in a fantastical London
Julie Vuong @julesvuong
A
s soon as Jessie Burton answers the phone in her beautifully clear, crisp voice (honed no doubt from her training as an actor), she launches
into the plot of her new book, Hidden Treasures, which Bloomsbury Children’s announced at Wednesday’s (18th October) Frankfurt Book Fair. Burton says: “It’s set at the closing stages of the First
World War, when a young girl called Bo Delafort pulls out a beautiful piece of treasure one morning from the River Thames. It sets into motion a train of events that leads her to have to make some big decisions about life and death.” Burton, at speed and with enthusiasm, describes the magical framework of the story: “There is a prophecy that every 500 years, if the three pieces of river treasure—a moon, star and sun—are given back to the river, it will open up and give back the soul of a once-beloved person.” She runs through her cast of characters—Bo’s Grandpa Gilbert and his League of Light, whose purpose it is to protect the secrets of the Thames; grieving Lord Muncaster, who longs for his dead daughter; and Bo, the girl at the centre of the book—who will lead readers through to its tantalising twist at the end.
Like endless authors before her, Burton has found her muse in London, her home town. “I don’t know if I could ever leave,” she says. “Hidden Treasures is very much rooted, I suppose, in the spirit of London and this normal family.” She adds: “I love the Thames,” emphasising its importance in Hidden Treasures. “I love looking at it, being by it. I can’t believe how quiet it can be compared with the
14 20th October 2023
Someone having five years to write a book is not necessarily going to write a better book; someone who has a year can be really focused
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