Contemporary Authors

• The Catalyst Candlewick Press (Somerville, MA), 2016

• Helena Coggan - https://helenacoggan.wordpress.com/about/

  Helena Coggan wrote the first draft of The Catalyst when she was thirteen. Her ambitions up to this point had been somewhat linear- she had wanted to write stories since she was six, and before that, she wanted to live in one.

  She lives with her family in London and divides her time between writing and procrastinating, which her parents insist on calling ‘school’. The Catalyst is her first novel. Its sequel, The Reaction, will be published in February 2016.

• School Library Journal - http://www.slj.com/2016/10/interviews/slj-chats-with-helena-coggan-teen-author-of-the-catalyst/

  QUOTED: "In the book, Rose and her father have a strange and dangerous power, one that would get them killed instantly if anyone—especially their close friends and colleagues—found out about it, and that they have, therefore, kept secret all Rose’s life. So, she has grown up with anthe-catalyst unbreachable gulf between her and other children. She can trust none of them, because she knows that if they knew the truth about her, they would turn her in."
  "They have conventional, untested ideas about right and wrong, whereas she has been raised by David, who works in a brutal law enforcement agency, who has killed more times than he can count, and whom she cares about more than anything in the world, including things like law and honor and justice. She doesn’t know how to relate to people or talk to them, so putting her in a romantic relationship—having her fall in love, be intimate, trust—just didn’t make sense with where she was as a character."

  SLJ Chats with Helena Coggan, Teen Author of “The Catalyst”
  By Tyler Hixson on October 11, 2016 2 Comments
  Helena Coggan’s thrilling debut The Catalyst (Candlewick, Oct. 11, 2016) contains magic, danger, and terrible secrets. In a world segregated between the powerfully magical green-eyed Gifted and the nonmagical black-eyed Ashkind, 15-year-old Rose Elmsworth and her adoptive father, David, both work for a ruthless Gifted-run law enforcement agency. They harbor a terrible secret, however, and after a murderer escapes from prison and reveals that he knows what the Elmsworths are hiding, Rose’s life—and her trust in her father—hang in the balance. Currently 17 years old, Coggan shared with SLJ her motivation for completing The Catalyst, what it’s like being a published author at a young age, and some advice for aspiring writers.

  How does it feel having been a published author at 16? Has it been overwhelming at all, or are you just soaking it in?
  helena-coggan
  Author Helena Coggan
  Definitely still soaking it in. The book’s been out in Britain, where I live, for about a year and a half, so I suppose I’ve had plenty of time to get used to it, but it really doesn’t get any less weird. Whether it’s overwhelming or not…that kind of depends on the day and the occasion. Sometimes it can feel normal; mostly, it’s just me, sitting at our table at home, typing and trying to get the cats to stop nuzzling my laptop screen. But then eventually, I’ll be in a meeting with the publishers, or I’ll see the book in a store, or someone will tell me they’ve read it, and I’ll realize for the hundredth time how utterly bizarre all of this is, how lucky I’ve been, how astonishingly kind everyone else is…. For a very long time after I found out it was going to be published, I kept making contingency plans for what would happen if I woke up one day and realized none of it was real: that there were no characters, no book, no story in my head—I’d dreamed it all. The whole thing still feels a bit like that—like it might vanish at any moment.
  Your bio says that you wrote the first draft for The Catalyst at the age of 13. Can you describe how much the novel changed from that first draft to the finished book?
  I think it’s safe to say it changed quite a lot. For one thing, the first draft of the book was 160,000 words; the final one was about 97,000. So a lot had to go. I remember spending one afternoon in March, just after I’d had my first meeting with my editor, going through the book and cutting out 70,000 words—extraneous characters, plotlines, you name it. I’d been slightly trigger-happy with creating new subplots when I first wrote it; I was so giddy with happiness that I’d found an idea that I could write into an actual novel, so high on the sheer magic of it, that I got a bit carried away. There were about 10 drafts of the book between the first time I wrote it out in the fall of 2012 and the version that’s coming out in the United States now. Characters appeared and disappeared; plotlines grew and shrank; we had about five different endings. That’s not to say that the first and final drafts were completely different. The three main characters—Rose, David, and Loren—were almost unchanged, and the first half of the book stayed pretty much the same. But it took a while to test out the different versions of the story to find which suited the characters best. And it’s definitely helped me edit English coursework.
  There are some heavy philosophical themes in the novel: the difference between choosing to do evil and having evil thrust upon you; the psychological impact of realizing that a parent lived a different life before you came along. Where did the inspiration for The Catalyst come from?
  I always find this question really difficult, because I wouldn’t say there was an inspiration for it, in the sense that I was walking to school one day and suddenly had an idea about a girl living in a world scarred by magical war. I’ve loved writing for as long as I can remember. I still have the notebooks from when I was five and six—half-finished scraps of fairy tales in jerky writing. So I’d known for years that it was something I was reasonably good at, something I wanted to do as much as I could. I promised myself when I was 10, after I’d won a couple of kids’ writing competitions, that I’d try to write a “full story” (I never used the word book until it was nearly finished; I was terrified of getting my own hopes up) before I turned 13, just because I thought it was worth trying to see if I could. I never thought I’d actually do it, of course; I was just trying to motivate myself, to put a deadline on it, because I knew I had a greater chance if I tried than if I didn’t. I spent all that time waiting for inspiration, for a bolt from the blue, scouring the back of my mind for a brainwave, but I found only the same old ideas. And then suddenly, my 13th birthday had passed, I still had nothing, and I realized that waiting for inspiration wasn’t getting me anywhere. I thought: well, I might as well try now, with what I have—what have I got to lose? So I went back to my old ideas for stories, the ones I’d never thought were any good. I took half a dozen mediocre ideas and made them into one decent one. And when I started writing it, I made it better.
  Do you identify with Rose, your main protagonist? Or is there another character you connected with most ?
  Some characters were definitely the most fun to write. Felix, the main antagonist, is—behind all his justifications and ideological precepts and long-held grudges—stark raving mad, in the sense that reason and empathy are no longer things he has any time for. That was interesting to play around with, to see what would happen when you gave someone like that power and charisma and an army. I’d say David, Rose’s adoptive father, was the most difficult to write, because he’s supposed to be a genius, and obviously I’m not, so that was definitely a challenging impression to create. My attitude to writing all of them was rather like that of a three-year-old with a chemistry set: I just wanted to see what would happen. That’s what I find exhilarating about writing, and that’s exactly why I wouldn’t say I identified with any of them; I didn’t base their thought processes on my own, because the whole point, for me, was seeing how those thought processes changed and watching them grow as I wrote them. That’s what makes writing fun, for me.
  I liked that Rose is not described as particularly beautiful, and there isn’t a strong romantic element in the book. It made me focus on her more than if she had been the Amazon warrior–type character whom we see so often in pop culture. Was that a conscious effort on your part, to break away from that norm?
  Originally, it wasn’t. In the first drafts, Rose was beautiful, tall, and confident, and I had planned for her to end up with one of the boys in the book. I suppose there was a rather immature instinct on my part to make all the teenager parts of being a teenager effortless for her—a desire to lift her above normal adolescent insecurities, just because I could. But as she developed, I started to realize that that didn’t make any sense. In the book, Rose and her father have a strange and dangerous power, one that would get them killed instantly if anyone—especially their close friends and colleagues—found out about it, and that they have, therefore, kept secret all Rose’s life. So, she has grown up with anthe-catalyst unbreachable gulf between her and other children. She can trust none of them, because she knows that if they knew the truth about her, they would turn her in. They have conventional, untested ideas about right and wrong, whereas she has been raised by David, who works in a brutal law enforcement agency, who has killed more times than he can count, and whom she cares about more than anything in the world, including things like law and honor and justice. She doesn’t know how to relate to people or talk to them, so putting her in a romantic relationship—having her fall in love, be intimate, trust—just didn’t make sense with where she was as a character.
  The other thing I came to realize was that beauty is almost ubiquitous among teenage heroines in YA, as are romantic subplots with dark, knowledgeable, idolized boys—so much so that it can seem like a necessary part of their development, something without which they are not yet whole. And that idea can do real damage to the teenage girls who read those stories. It was completely unnecessary to Rose, so I decided she would be better off, more interesting, without it. And I think she is.
  A sequel is on the way! Can you tell me what it’s about, or is that being kept under wraps for now?
  Yes, I can! Without giving too much away… The second book, in my eyes, is about how Rose’s worldview changes after she starts to question what David has done to keep them alive. Was it all necessary? Was the seclusion he raised her in really all for her own good? Was he ever really honest with her about what he did before she was born, about what he did when she was growing up? As her world descends into chaos, she suddenly finds herself having to fight in her own corner, for her own life, in a fracturing world of war and intrigue and murder, without the protections she enjoyed as a child. Just as the question of the first book, for me, is, “Who will Rose decide to betray?,” the question of the second is, “Who will she become?” Because, of course, in that kind of world, you have to make terrible decisions to survive, the kind of decisions that change you as a person. So will she decide to become more like David—clever, brutal, amoral, and dangerous? And if not, how will she survive?
  With school and writing and promoting your book seemingly taking up your life, what do you like to do for fun—if there’s time, that is?
  This is the thing—writing is fun, for me. I’ve never considered it work. It’s what makes me happiest, what I’m best at. It’s like playing a video game, like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, except you get to invent everything from scratch, conjure it from thin air. It’s like doing magic. I can’t imagine ever not writing, not even if I knew for certain that no one would ever read anything I wrote. That’s kind of an optional bonus, for me. Schoolwork is obviously harder, but in Britain you get to narrow down your subjects at 16, which means that I get to focus on maths and physics and chemistry. So, even on a bad day, when I have a deluge of homework, it’s at least on subjects I find interesting and satisfying.
  That’s not to say I don’t have hobbies, of course—I have my guitar and reading and TV—but normally, I just spend as much time as I can with my friends. I am inordinately lucky to have them. They have saved my sanity more times than I can count, and one day, I’ll have a shot at repaying them, but for the moment…they’ll just have to put up with my sarcasm and my terrible jokes. Sorry, guys.
  What does your writing process look like on any given day? Do you have a set schedule, or do you write when you have time?
  Mostly when I have time. I used to have a schedule, of sorts. I’d write on my lunch break (which was about half an hour) and do my homework after school, and then I’d spend mornings writing on the weekends. I liked that system, because it meant I got to write at least once a day. But schoolwork has ramped up a lot since then—we had really important exams at the end of 10th grade, and now even more important exams coming up at the end of senior year—so that kind of schedule doesn’t really work for me anymore. I tried writing whenever I had time last year, but the constant pressure of thinking that I had to write every moment that I wasn’t doing schoolwork made me tired and stressed, which meant nothing I wrote was worth reading. So now I just write when I feel like it. That makes me slower, of course, and that’s where I’ve been really lucky to have such kind and understanding publishers, who will give me more time if I ask. But it also makes my writing better, and it certainly makes me happier, so for me, it works. I don’t need that much to write—an Internet connection for Spotify (I hate silence), relative quiet otherwise, Word….someone to talk to, in breaks, or when I get tired. But otherwise, I can write pretty much anywhere.
  What is some of your best advice for aspiring novelists?
  Don’t start out wanting to publish a novel. It looks very, very daunting when you think of it like that. Think in milestones: a premise, characters, a thread of plot you want to follow, 1,000 words, 10,000, 50,000. Don’t think about how unlikely it is to be finished, to be published, because if you think about that for too long (my measure of “too long” is more than 10 seconds every two years), the most likely thing you’ll do is give up, and then you have no chance at all. Blind yourself to probability and keep going. Show people your work; get second and third opinions.
  I know it’s scary and nerve-wracking to expose it to other people’s judgement, but if you’re going to publish it, then a lot more people will be reading it, so it’s better to test the waters with kind people who care about you first. And most of all, give yourself a break. Don’t lock yourself in a room every day until you’ve dragged 1,000 words from yourself. Don’t shut yourself away from your friends. It won’t make you a better writer; it’ll just make you miserable. Be kind to yourself, forgive and laugh at your mistakes, cut extraneous words unhesitatingly and cheerfully, and absolutely make sure you’re happy, because that’s the point.
  Writing is magic. Revel in it; make sure it makes you feel better, more comfortable in yourself. And if it doesn’t, find something else that will—there are a hundred different ways to express your ideas and imaginary worlds that don’t involve hours spent typing. Don’t feel the need to write just because other people think it’s a good idea. Write because you want to. I do, at least.

QUOTED: "Although Rose is competent and quick-witted, she isn't the most engaging of heroines."

The Catalyst
Publishers Weekly.
263.31 (Aug. 1, 2016): p69.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text: 
The Catalyst
Helena Coggan. Candlewick, $17.99 (432p) ISBN 978-0-7636-8972-8
It's been 18 years since the Veilbreak project went wrong, shorting out electronic devices across the globe, letting in something from another
world that changed people in frightening ways, and leading to the brutal First War of Angels, during which the magical "Gifted" defeated the
magic-less "Ashkind." Fifteen-year-old Rose Elmsworth is a Gifted who works with her adoptive father, David, at the Department, this London's
version of a law enforcement agency. Rose and David are also "Hybrids" that face a monstrous transformation every six weeks, a secret they hold
close. The murder of a Department operative leads Rose to a man named Loren Arkwood and into a conspiracy with far-reaching implications.
Coggan's convoluted debut has an intriguing premise and calls to mind contemporary paranormal series like Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy,
but the story is so front-loaded with information about the different factions and their sub-classifications that readers may be hard pressed to keep
up. Double-crosses abound, but are fairly easy to see coming, and although Rose is competent and quick-witted, she isn't the most engaging of
heroines. Ages 14-up. (Oct.)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Catalyst." Publishers Weekly, 1 Aug. 2016, p. 69+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460285762&it=r&asid=489dbfcb4a463a9d86e821666339716c. Accessed 10 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A460285762

---

4/10/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1491801087540 2/4
6 books out next week
The Bookseller.
.5656 (Feb. 13, 2015): p18.
COPYRIGHT 2015 The Bookseller Media Group (Bookseller Media Ltd.)
http://www.thebookseller.com
Full Text: 
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
JENNIFER JACQUET
IS SHAME NECESSARY?
Allen Lane, 17th, 17.99 [pounds sterling], 9781846146114
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
STEVEN WEINBERG
TO EXPLAIN THE WORLD
Allen Lane, 17th, 20 [pounds sterling], 9780241196625
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
MIRANDA JULY
THE FIRST BAD MAN
4/10/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1491801087540 3/4
Canongate, 19th, 14.99 [pounds sterling], 9781782116721
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
PAUL MCAULEY
SOMETHING COMING THROUGH
Gollancz, 19th, 20 [pounds sterling], 9781473203938
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
HELENA COGGAN
THE CATALYST
Hodden, 19th, 14.99 [pounds sterling], 9781444794663
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
IAIN BANKS
POEMS
4/10/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1491801087540 4/4
Little, Brown, 16th, 12.99 [pounds sterling], 9781408705872
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"6 books out next week." The Bookseller, 13 Feb. 2015, p. 18. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA402050679&it=r&asid=43137c54f0f7f5f387d5e97e7db2658b. Accessed 10 Apr.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A402050679

• The Guardian
  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/01/an-author-at-15-helena-coggan-the-catalyst
  Word count: 2060

  QUOTED: "When I was six, I thought the pinnacle of human achievement was writing a book – not knowing about the Olympics. I promised myself I would write a novel before I was 13. And when I turned 13 I thought: 'I may as well attempt this now.' There is a seat at our dining room table, and for two years I’d sit there with my dad’s laptop until–my apologies!–it broke."
  "“I like to call them the ducklings. They are: 1) the ugly duckling who becomes acceptable to society; 2) the naive duckling who knows nothing about her world; and 3) the antisocial duckling, who is not socially able.” “Hang on, I’m sensing a common theme. The idea of teenage girls having to be ugly, naive or antisocial baffled me. I thought: what if you are fine? There are not many stories out there about a girl who is fine and confronted by things other than falling in love.”

  An author at 15: ‘teenage girls had to be ugly, naive or antisocial’
  Everyone has a novel inside them, but when is the best moment to start writing? Helena Coggan tells Kate Kellaway what it feels like to be published at 15

  Tony Schumacher writes about going from the bottom of the class to getting a thriller published at 46
  Helena Coggan
  ‘Any life lessons I can pass on are extremely limited’:15-year-old Helena Coggan’s novel The Catalyst is populated by angels and humans. Photograph: Pal Hansen for the Observer
  View more sharing options
  Shares
  0
  Comments
  0
  Kate Kellaway
  Sunday 1 February 2015 03.45 EST Last modified on Monday 6 February 2017 10.17 EST
  Helena Coggan explains that it was her teacher at primary school who first speculated that she might write a novel: “When I was six, I thought the pinnacle of human achievement was writing a book – not knowing about the Olympics. I promised myself I would write a novel before I was 13. And when I turned 13 I thought: ‘I may as well attempt this now.’ There is a seat at our dining room table, and for two years I’d sit there with my dad’s laptop until – my apologies! – it broke.”

  The apologies are directed at her father Philip, who is sitting in on the interview. And we are here because the novel Helena started at 13 is, remarkably, about to be published.

  Sign up to our Bookmarks newsletter
  Read more
  The Catalyst is a phenomenal achievement: a fantasy novel with a cast divided among the Gifted and mere mortals, the Ashkind. The 15-year-old protagonist, Rose Elmsworth, is one of the rare “hybrids” who become monsters at times not of their own choosing. Rose and her adoptive father (also a hybrid) struggle with their secret identities, keeping their monstrous selves under lock and key to limit damage. The narrative is assured, frightening, action packed. Nothing about it, except the age of its heroine, suggests it was written by the teenager in front of me.

  It is a winter afternoon, in the offices of Hodder & Stoughton publishers, high in a London tower block. The PR for the book is keeping us company on the off chance that, at 15, Helena might need defending. But she needs neither paternal nor professional support. She is her own person: spirited, with an alert face and flowing dark hair. She has a racing intelligence, but also a steadiness that bypasses any conceitedness she could be forgiven for feeling.

  She relives, with gusto, the moment she heard Hodder was publishing the novel. Georgina Laycock, at John Murray, read an early draft and passed it on to Hodder’s Kate Howard, now Helena’s editor: “We met on 20 November 2013. I don’t think I’m ever going to forget anything about that day for as long as I live. We came in, and Kate must have been bemused because, even when people know a 15-year-old girl has written the book, they don’t expect to see a teenager. Kate said she’d pitch it to the board. The next Tuesday she called Dad, who was in Washington. My mum was picking me and my sister up from school. He called us in the car and we put it on speaker and Dad said: ‘They want to publish the book.’ And I can quite confidently say I did my first proper teenage-girl scream and nearly burst the eardrums of everyone in the car. And then he said: ‘Not only that, it is a three-book deal.’ And we actually had to stop the car and get out and run up and down the street a little bit.”

  Advertisement

  I had thought Samantha Shannon, Bloomsbury’s accomplished novelist who published her first book at 21 (and also secured a three-book deal) was as young as a young adult (YA) writer could get. Then came 19-year-old Nigerian Chibundu Onuzo, who made her debut with Faber. But Helena wins the contest hands down, while acknowledging the limitations of her youth. When I talk about the sophisticated moral question she raises – whether it is possible to be innocently evil – she stresses: “I was trying to ask the question, not answer it. Any life lessons I can pass on are extremely limited. I am 15,” she says, laughing. “I don’t think my understanding of the world is inherently limited by my age, but I didn’t write the book with an agenda; I wasn’t trying to address a societal ill. Abdication of responsibility interested me.”

  There is not much abdication of responsibility possible in her own teenage life. She has not neglected her schoolwork, though she says: “I hate studying for GCSEs.” She attends a London school and has not yet decided what she will do at A level or beyond – she is as interested in sciences as arts. “The world, as I see it, ends on 20 February [publication day], although any idea of myself as an author is still alien.”

  ‘I wasn’t trying to address a societal ill. Abdication of responsibility interested me’: Helena Coggan.
  Facebook Twitter Pinterest
  ‘I wasn’t trying to address a societal ill. Abdication of responsibility interested me’: Helena Coggan. Photograph: Pål Hansen
  Helena was born in and grew up in London and lives in a “house filled with books”. Aside from the inevitable JK Rowling, she praises Derek Landy, whose Skulduggery Pleasant series – especially its fight scenes – influenced her. Philip Pullman, to whom you might suppose her indebted, almost put her off writing: “I loved His Dark Materials. But in terms of motivation to write, that series is terrifying because he explores deep things about theology and the human condition and, seriously, is that what you have to be saying to write a book?” The book she most wishes she could have written is Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And she hails a “wonderful” book called How Not to Write a Novel, by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark, “the closest thing I had to a holy text. It tells you that if the reader knows the plan, the plan must never work. It can’t – otherwise the suspense has gone.”

  She also has a theory about teenage girls and the way they are “betrayed” by YA fiction. She launches into it, gathering speed as she talks. There are, she maintains, three girl types: “I like to call them the ducklings. They are: 1) the ugly duckling who becomes acceptable to society; 2) the naive duckling who knows nothing about her world; and 3) the antisocial duckling, who is not socially able.” Reading about these girls when she was 10 or 12, she thought: “Hang on, I’m sensing a common theme. The idea of teenage girls having to be ugly, naive or antisocial baffled me. I thought: what if you are fine? There are not many stories out there about a girl who is fine and confronted by things other than falling in love.”

  Advertisement

  She adds: “The world is usually saved in YA novels as the teenage girl figures out who she is and falls in love.” When I ask whether she has ever been in love, Helena replies: “The Catalyst is fantasy after all, and the whole point of the genre is to write about things that may not correlate exactly to your own experiences… If that’s all right, I would prefer to leave that one; it’s just a little too personal.”

  But she goes on to say that reading such books as a teenager, “the overall impression is you can’t possibly know who you are because, whatever you think you’re like, you’ve not experienced enough to know the truth. And when that is being thrown at you – I’m sure none of the authors intend this – but when you read it over and over again, it undermines your self-confidence. [So you think]: ‘Is what I’m like OK?’”

  Rose in The Catalyst is fine if you discount her hybrid flips. And there is no conventional love story, just one memorably nightmarish and humiliating date. To me, Helena seems more than fine and has a charming way of championing her supportive family. When I read the book I was playing a guessing game, wondering what her parents did for a living, imagining they must be high-powered. It was not until the final acknowledgements that I saw that they are journalists (her father works at the Economist; her mother Sandra is a radio producer at the BBC in the current affairs department). It would be easy to assume this was the clincher in getting the book published. Helena says: “I wouldn’t say it helps that they are journalists, but they are incredibly clever people. That is the useful thing.”

  But she is aware that her father’s acquaintance with Georgina Laycock got the book read initially. And she acknowledges her good fortune, because getting anyone to read a first novel is always hard (whatever age you might be). But from my own experience of working in publishing, I’d say that while an introduction can be a lucky break, once that has happened you are on your own: writers must sink or swim according to their talents. “My parents have been fantastically supportive. And they were useful as primary editors before I had an actual editor because they are kind and insightful.” For the benefit of her listening father, I joke that I might have to tone this down in print. Helena protests: “Come on, you have got to put on the record how awesome my parents are!”

  What most intrigued me is the book’s dedication to her younger sister Catherine, who sounds as remarkable as Helena. In it, Helena predicts Caroline will one day be “curing cancer or implementing world peace. Catherine is 12 and incredible,” Helena says. “I meant every single word – I couldn’t ask for a better sister.”

  Advertisement

  Catherine will have to get used to long stretches of having a sister typing away at their dining table. A sequel to The Catalyst is under way, and a standalone third novel will follow. “Please don’t ask me what it will be about,” says Helena. “That is a post-GCSE problem.” You can see what a stressful collision of demands there now is on Helena. But she reassures me she does not write or study all the time – she loves playing the guitar and composing sad songs. Having said that, sad songs are not getting a look-in now because, she says: “I’m so happy, I can’t imagine being happier.”

  This seems a natural ending to our conversation, but she wants to tell me one more thing. “That English teacher I mentioned at the start? I told her about the book a few months ago. She was astonished. She said: ‘Oh! When I said I thought you could be an author, I meant when you were 30 or 40…’” And that surprised Helena, because she could not imagine putting any prediction on hold. Besides, by the time she was 13 she felt there was no time to lose.

• HCPL Teen Scene
  https://hcplteenscene.org/2017/03/09/read-review-the-catalyst-by-helena-coggan/
  Word count: 299

  QUOTED: "This book was amazing! It was very well written, and had tons of detail."

  Read + Review — The Catalyst by Helena Coggan
  Rosalyn Elmsworth lives in a world of magic, and those who don’t have it. In the heart of London, years before she was born, the worst crime was committed. Andrew Ichor, now long gone, created a machine, working on his father’s research. When it was turned on, the results were catastrophic. Now, the world is divided in two. Those with green eyes, and those with grey. People with green eyes have powers, and people with grey eyes do not. The color of your eyes are random, so even the child of two green eyed, or gifted people, could have grey eyes, and be one of the ashkind. Rosalyn, or Rose, is a gifted person, with many powers. On the other hand, she has a deadly secret. Her and her father are both gifted, but are also both monsters. Will Rose be able to keep her secret, or will she have to reveal it?
  I think that this book was amazing! It was very well written, and had tons of detail. I loved every twist and turn, and every surprise this book threw at me. I could not put it down. Rosalyn is a really amazing character. There were so many plot twists and lies. I cannot wait until the sequel arrives! I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves adventure and mystery.
  One memorable thing from the book was Tabitha. Tabitha is a small girl with a terrible secret. She is considered a Demon, because her eyes are a very dark shade of grey. Even though she is considered evil, Tabitha is a sweet and kind girl.