VJ Books presents Michael Cadnum!
 Known as a poet during the 1980s, Michael Cadnum has since gained a reputation for his adult suspense novels as well as his many young-adult novels based on history, myth, and legend. Horror and suspense novels such as The Judas Glass, Sleepwalker, and Ghostwright have a broad appeal to adults and teens who enjoy stories featuring ghosts, werewolves, and vampires, while his psychological thrillers address many of the serious problems experienced by adolescents.
In more recent years, teen novels such as Ship of Fire, National Book Award finalist The Book of the Lion, and The Dragon Throne have presented new twists on traditional stories, by featuring exciting storylines, compelling characters, and realistic settings that bring to life everything from the voyage of Sir Francis Drake to the crusades of Richard the Lionhearted to Ovid's Metamorphoses. Reviewing Ship of Fire, a story about Drake's raid on Spanish ships at Cadiz in 1597, Booklist critic John Peters cited Cadnum's reputation "for rousing historical adventures set against gruesomely naturalistic backdrops."
In a contrast that shows the author's versatility, Cadnum's retelling of portions of Ovid's ancient tales in Starfall: Phaeton and the Chariot of the Sun was praised by a Publishers Weekly contributor as "a trilogy of enchanting tales" in which the storyteller succeeds in "humanizing classical figures and transforming lofty language into accessible, lyrical prose."
In his AAYA interview Cadnum described his wider purpose in creating fiction: "I want to give a voice to characters who ordinarily never have one. So few people tell the story of a family that never discovers the truth about a missing child, as in
Zero at the Bone," he asserted. "Few people have seen the Robin Hood story through the eyes of the Sheriff of Nottingham, as I do in In a Dark Wood. I want to tell the secrets that are not told, and to see the world through new eyes." Cadnum is motivated by the ultimate challenge to a writer: "I want to experience the joys and fears of people whom I never really meet."
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