Alex is an acclaimed TV scriptwriter and was lead writer for SIR GADABOUT THE WORST KNIGHT IN THE LAND, amongst various series. SIR GADABOUT won an Indie Award and Alex himself won Best Writer Award in the 2003 Children's BAFTAs.

THE TALENT THIEF, published by Macmillan in October 2006, is his first novel. An equally imaginative and unique novel, THE STORM MAKER, will follow in early 2008 and Alex is currently working on a third title for Macmillan.

Madeline and Rufus Breeze come from a long line of fantabulous fanmakers they've been keeping people cool in style for centuries. And their eccentric inventor father has stubbornly continued the tradition ...even though their village has been covered in snow for several years. Now the Breeze family is so in debt, local tyrant Bartholomew Tullock is threatening to take their home. Then a smooth-tongued stranger and his blue-haired dog arrive in town with a solution to the Breezes' problem.

Soon determined Madeline and her father are off on a death-defying journey to sell their breathtaking and breeze-making fans to the residents of the one nearby city that is (strangely) still hot. If only they didn't have to face a mini-cyclone, stolen fans, enemy spies, eclectic elements and desert dunes hotter than an oven to get there ...And in their absence it's up to Rufus to keep his mother and their house safe from greedy Tullock and his nightmarish skeletal sidekick, Scratskin.

Hair-raising and harebrained, and with equally over-the-top illustrations by award-winning illustrator, David Roberts!