David Clement-Davies

The walled city of Barbal lies in the middle of the desert, where Mardak the Dark reigns supreme over the land. There is little knowledge of this mysterious master of Alchemy, except that he wears a golden mask and has a tremendous ambition for power and knowledge. Mardak's obsessions have already resulted in the imprisonment of the Lord Alchemist, his archrival. Now nothing, no one, stands in his path except for young Silas Root. Small and determined Silas sets off for Barbal armed with but a simple stone talisman and control over his own destiny. On his incredible journey, he encounters a winged demon and even an army of lost souls. Can Silas muster the ultimate courage to confront and defeat such evil and the man behind the mask? Well – the future of magic depends on it.

One of his first stories in three years, published in 2011 and for a younger audience, it is the tale of Jotto, the brave mouse with sea blue eyes and a leather waistcoat, who can draw perfect circles and who escapes his brow-beaten home to become an artist in the dangerous Renaissance city of Florence. There he has many adventures, meets none other than the great Michelangelo himself and learns how to become 'famous'. It mixes real history with comic fact in a romp through art and culture, that is basically about the fighting artistic spirit.

David Clement-Davies made his first outing into adult fiction in early 2011 under the pen name David C Davies. The Blood Garden is a very adult thriller, that virtually creates a new genre, the vampire and modern crime story in one. It is highly wrought, set in Covent Garden in London and at Britain's Royal Ballet, as well as many other London locations, where he intricately weaves his common themes of fantasy versus reality, with a dark love story.

In 2009, out of a publishing battle in the US and now 'disillusioned with so much of the climate of modern publishing' David Clement-Davies took back the eBook rights to his novels from all his publishers, in the UK and US, and founded his own Press – PhoenixArkPress – 'The Storyteller's Publisher', founded by writers and artists, for writers and artists. He started a blog, to tell some truths about books and publishing, to create 'cultural essays' and to give readers a novel 'as it is written' – "Dragon in the Post".

Fell, released in October 2007, is a sequel of The Sight. In this continuation of the original story the complexities of Larka's brother, Fell, are further explored nearly five years following the initial story. Fell, now a 'Kerl' or loner, having been on a long spiritual journey in search of answers, has instead found himself another task for his lasting youth supposedly preserved by the strange power of the Sight. A human girl, Alina Sculcuvant, is strangely connected with the past of the black wolf now feared as a ghost or legend. Rescued from the snows as only a child by the shepherd Malduk, who throughout her growing years makes her "dress as a boy and work twice as hard as one".

Clement-Davies varied slightly from his animal tales when he published The Telling Pool in August 2005. The Telling Pool tells the story of Rhodri Falcon and his crusader father who become entangled in the war of a king and the machinations of a seductive sorceress – one who literally steals men's hearts. Rhodri must discover the hero within him, a hero the amazing magic of the Telling Pool links to ancient heroes and even more ancient faiths. While finding powers within him that he had no idea about Rhodri must reclaim his fathers heart before the damage is undoable.

The Sight was inspired by Clement-Davies' travel to Romania in the winter, 1990, where he learned of superstitious tales and local folklore (such as Dracula).

David Clement-Davies (born 1964) is a British writer of fantasy fiction. He is known as the author of the animal fantasy books The Sight, Fire Bringer and Fell (sequel to The Sight).

David Clement-Davies was born in 1964 and went to Westminster School and Edinburgh University where he read History and English Literature, specialising in the Italian Renaissance, and Russian Literature and Society. He began his writing career as a freelance travel journalist, and his first novel, Fire Bringer, was published in 1999. It was followed by The Sight and Fell. He has also written a musical, two adult novels, and is currently working on a play, set in the present and the 17th century, called Startled Anatomies, alongside his children's books.