Shelf life
New York Times-bestselling popular fiction author Susanna Kearsley picks her five favourite reads
Susanna Kearsley
The Snow Queen
by Hans Christian Andersen
‘Fairy tales were a big part of my childhood reading, and though I’d be hard pressed to pick an absolute favourite, The Snow Queen would be among them. Because my own best friends were boys I could instantly relate to the heroine Gerda, whose best friend Kai was changed by the shards of the shattered magic mirror and carried away by the wicked Snow Queen, forcing Gerda to set off on a perilous journey to find and rescue him. Reading the story for the first time was a revelation – it was long and easy to get lost in, and had an epic feel I’d never encountered before in a fairy tale.