Illustrating Charm

A sexy package for a sexy story!

We’ve been talking about Sarah Pinborough’s brilliant take on Cinderella, in her novel Charm, over the last week. And while we’ve given you a few hints and teasers about the content, today we want to take a moment to talk about how lovely the book itself is.

It looks absolutely stunning in real life, and it also looks beautiful inside. This is a real, illustrated, old-fashioned fairy story (with a twist…) The multi-talented artist Les Edwards penned fifteen pen-and-ink illustrations and I’m really pleased to be able to blog about two of my very favourites with you. This is the first one, he’s called Mr Mouse, and there is a reason he’s in a handkerchief:

… and I love him for being a fabulous little sketch, as well as for the cheeky, laugh-out-loud moment in the book that this illustration particularly refers to (no spoilers!)

The second is a little bit more glamorous – the perfect Cinderella carriage. It’s how she gets to and escapes the magical ball so in a way, this is the pumpkin (or not!) which changes everything:

And I can’t help rooting for that moment when all of Cinderella’s dreams come true and she’s away to the ball and the night of her life. Everyone should have a dream – whether, in the end, it’s what you really want or not – and this is a beautiful image of one that magically becomes a reality.

Last week we ran a competition to win a signed copy of Charm, which you guys went crazy for! As such, we’ve managed to rally round another five signed copies of Charm. For your chance to win one, read the first chapter extract here, and answer the following question:

How old is Rose?

Email your answer, along with your postal details, with the subject header ‘Charm’ to competitions@orionbooks.co.uk by midnight on Sunday 28th July 2013. Terms and conditions apply.

For more information follow the lovely @SarahPinborough and @LesEdwardsArt on twitter!