When I decided I wanted to write murder mysteries that happened in a magical world, I asked myself lots of questions.
What it might actually be like for there to really be magic? I thought there would probably be quite a few things that happened occasionally that no one could explain.
What would it be like to be one of those few magical people?
This gives me such a strong and fun basis that all the stories have in common.
Importantly, the stories are set in a world where magic exists, but it is very rare and sorcerers are very secretive. And this gives me another great way into much of the mystery plots.
I also asked myself what it might be like to be one of the few magical people. You could not reveal your magic without an awful lot of fuss. So how would you use it? Would you use your magic to do good things and help people...or would you realise that magic gave you enormous power? Would some people be tempted to use magic to do bad things?
I decided that some people most definitely would!
And I decided that there would need to be magical police who made sure people obeyed certain laws when using magic.
So when people ask me what my books are about, I tell them they are about sorcerers who go bad . . . and the people who try to stop them.