Author Tanith Lee passed away earlier this year. It was only then that I realised what an amazing catalogue of work she produced. I have said elsewhere that I still have a copy of her Castle of Dark. It left a profound impression in my young mind when I found it. It was lyrical and mysterious with duelling perspectives that kept me enthralled. And, it was complete in itself.

Sometimes I am curiously incurious. I read the her book, loved it and never found or read another thing by Lee since. This is contrasted to reading all the hard back Asimov novels our library had, everything Douglas Adams wrote, the Little House on the Prairie series,  Magician (and the rest of them) and years before the entire shelves of The Three Investigators my teacher owned.

However, unlike so many books Asimov included, Castle of Dark left a lasting mark on my imagination. Perhaps, it was all I needed at the time.

There are other lone titles I’ve read that I remember more fondly than a slew of books by the same author, such as I Heard the Owl Call My Name and of course, To Kill A Mockingbird. In time, others will come back to me.

The below is what was posted on Lee’s site at her passing.

Tanith Lee: “Though we come and go, and pass into the shadows, where we leave behind us stories told – on paper, on the wings of butterflies, on the wind, on the hearts of others – there we are remembered, there we work magic and great change – passing on the fire like a torch – forever and forever. Till the sky falls, and all things are flawless and need no words at all.”