After more than forty years I think it is safe for me to confess that I wrote both Search for the Sage and its sequel Tunnel at World's End when I was supposed to be working for the Exchequer and Audit Department (now the National Audit Office) in Chesser House, Edinburgh.

Search for the Sage was written just before my children were born, and the children in it are called Stephen, Pamela and Mary. If you can't work out where these names come from, you haven't been paying attention! My first wife's nieces and nephews were enthusiastic first readers of Search for the Sage, and that is why the book is dedicated to "Toby, Lucy and Jenny, who went there first."

You can read a synopsis of Search for the Sage here.

Search for the Sage is a fantasy adventure for young children. It is set in an imaginary world on the inside of a sphere called Within, where men live alongside elves, dwarves, gnomes and even flying horses.

New Zealand artist Sanjana Baijnath illustrated Search for the Sage and caught the mood beautifully.