'Characters that broke rules and changed minds': Frances Hardinge on Victorian rebels

Detective fiction, steampunk adventures and historical fantasies – so many Victorian stories have amazing heroines. They’re wonderfully rebellious, strong-willed, defiant and adventurous. They’re exciting and empowering, and Frances Hardinge says she couldn’t have written her gothic murder mystery The Lie Tree without them

• Find out more about The Lie Tree and why you should review it for Young Critics 2015 here

I blame the house.

Between the ages of seven and twelve, I lived in an eerie, grey, mouse-infested hilltop house with a stern-looking stone eagle on the roof. My friends took one look at it, and made comments about ‘castles’. Guests were unnerved by the weird spectral moans the wind made when it blew. No wonder I developed a taste for the old, strange, mysterious and gothic.

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