With a story like Amelia’s, the lack of a coherent explanation is the nightmare fuel. I promise you that even if readers don’t concoct something specific, they nevertheless feel the shape of an explanation too terrible to be borne. This tends to work better in horror than in science fiction.

I like princesses, but I love them even more in their depraved and murderous states. I just really wanted to write in the perspective of a gross princess character, and I wanted her to be unapologetically messy.

Shape-changers exist in myth and legend all over the world, and, to me, there’s something inherently tragic about them. I think Ovid’s Metamorphoses in particular thinks about the idea of willing and unwilling shape change.

The whole idea for the story sprang from a visit to North Wales for a friend’s wedding, in a really rugged, scenic spot along the coast. I was travelling back with friends and we stopped to wander about on the cliffs and the idea for a ghost story began to take root!