As the daughter of one librarian and the granddaughter of another, it would be fair to say that the love of books began to be instilled in me as soon as I was able to focus. I grew up in a house with books in absolutely every room, and first earned the title of ‘bookworm’ at around six years old.

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that I started writing my own books at the age of eight. I won’t say that I wrote anything good at the age of eight – indeed, I hope that those stories are gone forever, and never come back to haunt me. My writing began to improve as I realised that I would likely produce much better work if I wrote what I wanted to read, rather than what I thought other people wanted to read – in my case, character-oriented fantasy with a dash of magic realism and a sprinkling of science fiction.

When I was seventeen a tall, quick-tempered man called Liam Colley walked into my head and said hello. I liked him straight away, which was fortunate as he turned out to be my muse. He’s real to me, and that’s what matters. He began telling me stories about the world that he is from, and I started writing them down for him. You can find out a bit more about this world, how I have explored it, and how anyone can start creating a fantasy world all of their very own, on my world building page.

Four of my stories are available to download now. They’re completely free, so what have you got to lose? You can find out about them, and where they are currently available, on my stories page. I’m in the process of compiling a short story collection in tandem with finishing and polishing my first novel, which will be called Beneath Starlight.

As for the other stuff, well… I live in the north-east of England with my husband (hereafter referred to as Himself), and my love of books has chased me all the way to my current job in an academic bookshop. (My librarian grandmother, on hearing about it, announced ‘Thank goodness, she has a proper job at last!’) For me, there’s not much to beat a job where I can get cheap, and often free, books. To relax, I play the piano, I knit, and I read. I read a lot.

I hope that you enjoy what you find here, and if you have any comments (good or bad!) then I’d love to hear from you, at karen@karendelange.co.uk, via my Facebook page, or on Twitter. If you’d like to receive e-mail updates, please click here for them, and thank you!