One of the few friends the Boy makes during his journey. Photo credit: Vincent Van Zalinge from Unsplash
For day 6 of #18DaystoMGDebut, I’m describing my favorite secondary character from THE BOY, THE BOAT, AND THE BEAST, and that’s definitely the baby owl. Without giving away too many spoilers, the Boy meets a baby owl along his journey, and this owl’s presence in the story had quite a journey itself.
Originally, the owl character was a dog, inspired by our own dog, but while I was doing a big revision, I realized I needed something that could be in a tree. At that time, two baby owls had been living in one of the trees in our back garden and I thought they were wonderful. The character change stuck and made that scene so much better. After the book sold to Paula Wiseman Books/Simon & Schuster, my editor Sarah Jane Abbott suggested I expand the owl’s roll. I’m so glad she did, because now I can’t imagine the story without this character.
Have you pre-ordered THE BOY, THE BOAT, AND THE BEAST yet? All pre-orders are eligible for a Thank You Gift, and can be entered to win a special book-themed gift pack.
Personalized copies of THE BOY, THE BOAT, AND THE BEAST are available for pre-order through my fantastic local independent bookstore, BookPeople.
The novel is also available for pre-order on IndieBound, Powell’s, Book Depository, Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Walmart, as well as numerous other independent bookstores.
Check out all my #18DaystoMGDebut posts here.
