Sally Green Books In Order

Publication Order of The Half Bad Trilogy Books

Publication Order of The Smoke Thieves Books

Sally Green is a British young adult fantasy fiction author best known for her debut trilogy “Half Bad.” She started her career as an accountant and then a full-time mother before she decided to try her hand at writing. She had almost immediate success with her debut novel “Half Bad” getting a million-pound advance even before it as published. The trilogy it spawned has since been licensed to publishers across more than 42 countries. She also scored a movie deal not long after she published the debut novel in 2014. Unlike many novelists, Sally was never a creative person and hence she surprised family, friends, and even herself with her success. Nonetheless, she always loved writing even though much of what she did was pen financial reports in her former life as an accountant. She had started writing on a whim in 2010 and only intended to pen a short story which soon turned into a manuscript for a full-length novel. She has been addicted to storytelling ever since. While she writes fantasy novels full of witches, she has never been a huge reader of fantasy novels or a consumer of fantasy films. However, Green does find the subject somewhat interesting due to the social issues that arise from them such as witch hunts. As for her influences, she cites “Wuthering Heights” for its great sense of place and evocation of mood while she loves the style and simplicity of Ernest Hemingway.

While Sally achieved success very fast, her journey to international stardom was not so straight forward. She was a perfectionist and the typical high achiever that always looked to do the best job she could. At school, she was good at English and Maths and hence she decided to pursue a career in the sciences when she went to college. Sally Green went to Imperial College London from where she graduated with a mining geology degree. She then got a job working in a publishing firm before she moved back to Manchester and went back to school to train as an accountant. Soon after, she got married to investment company executive Allan and this would eventually lead to her venture into writing. When her husband’s business started flourishing, she decided to leave work and become a stay at home mum. She had a huge garden where she grew vegetables and kept chicken trying to be a true earth mother. But she soon got tired of it and was thinking of going back to accounting or find something else to do when she thought about writing a novel. She did not read anything in fantasy but she had an idea about the gifts that one generation leaves to another and believed it would make a great story.

The big breakthrough came when Sally was invited by a friend to come to the Shropshire storytelling weekend festival. Before then, she would have never thought of going t such an event but since she was interested in becoming an author she decided to attend. At the festival, she got immersed into a world of dark forces, witches, and mysticism which planted a seed for her novel “Half Bad.” However, she was interested in something that was more morally abstruse and complicated rather than an unpretentious conflict between evil and good that was in most novels in the genre. Hooked into the idea of becoming an author, she was soon enrolled at the Open University and was learning all about creative writing from their online courses. She was often the student that complained when her colleagues did not take their classes seriously and hence it is not surprising that she is the most successful of the bunch. Soon after, she wrote a teen story and sent it to several agents only to get rejection after rejection. But then Rogers, Coleridge & White’s agent Claire Wilson wrote back saying her manuscript was not good but she liked the way she wrote though she would have preferred something edgier. That response was the encouragement she needed and it lit the fire of optimism inside her. A few weeks later, she started writing the manuscript for her debut determined to prove everyone wrong. Within a few days after submitting her novel to Claire, she took her on as her agent, and soon after they were entertaining a whirlwind of offers.

“Half Bad” the debut novel of “The Half Bad Trilogy” by Sally Green introduces the lead character, Nathan. At the start of the story, he is living in a cage where he has been shackled, beaten, and trained to be a killer. He is the child of Marcus one of the most violent and terrifying black witches in the world that had a relationship with a white witch who would give birth to Nathan. When his mother died, he together with his stepsisters and stepbrother had to live with the grandmother. Given his parentage, he is deemed an abomination and with his father on the run from the white witches who are after his life, his only hope for survival is to escape and find his father. Meanwhile, he endures all manner of decrees, abuses, and bullying from the white witches who are in charge of the land. If he can find his father, he will be granted the three gifts that would endow him with magical powers that he desperately needs. But how will he be able to find the man, when he cannot trust anyone including the woman he loves and not even his family.

“Half Wild” by Sally Green opens to Nathan having finally become a witch as he had been healed by his father who had then given him the three gifts that were his birthright. But he is still all alone as his meeting with his father was brief and he never had the chance to get all the information he wanted from him. He also needed to kill him so that Annalise could, at last, be free but this was something he could not do even though he knew how cruel the man was. But all of that is now in the past is he needs to find a way to rescue Annalise from Mercury’s house and also find Gabriel. But even though he now has his magical gifts, he is still an abomination in the land and has many enemies looking to kill him. He is forced to go on the run and the hunters will not give him a moment’s rest. They will not rest until they have killed his father and destroyed Nathan.

Sally Green’s “Half Lost” is a novel set in contemporary Europe that takes a look at the risks people take for love, the nature of evil and good, and exploitation and survival. At the opening of the novel, Nathan Bryn now a seventeen-year-old witch is the most critical weapon of the Alliance that is steadily losing the war. His kill tally has been steadily rising but it will be a long time before he can end the dictatorial rule of the White Witches in the UK. Nathan too has gotten nowhere in his plans to get revenge for the wrongs done to his former girlfriend Annalise. He needs a strong amulet currently in the possession of Ledger the powerful witch, if he is to save the Alliance and himself. Ledger the witch is not going to let go of the amulet that easily even as Nathan is starting to lose it. Lately, he has been seeing visions of golden moments of his death and being pursued by an endless throng of invincible hunters. His closest companion asks that he join him as he leaves the kingdom and goes away to start a new peaceful life. But even the love that Gabriel promises and has already shown him may not be sufficient to save Nathan from the person he has become or from the war.

One Response to “Sally Green”

1. Lesley Mason: 2 years ago

   Thank you for that pre read info and i am now looking forward to a good read.

   Reply