A city where magic is believable

Merle, an orphan, goes to work at the house of Arcimboldo, who makes magic mirrors and who fits her blind friend Junipa with mirror-glass eyes.
In this fantastical world, Venice is under siege by armies from ancient Egypt, and an envoy arrives from Hell itself to offer the city protection. But Venice already has a protector--a water spirit called the Flowing Queen, who enlists Merle to help her fight the city’s enemies.
"When I was thinking about where to set this story, I was looking for a place where magic is believable and I was thinking about Prague or Venice. I had been to Prague before and set another novel there, so I went to Venice for a week with my wife and went sightseeing. I just fell in love with the city.
"It has that fantastic atmosphere for some reason, not just because of the waterways, but also the buildings and that slight atmosphere of decay.
"I was looking for elements that could be bent and twisted a little bit to create a magical atmosphere. The stone lions were one of the first things I thought of, because when you come to Venice these huge lions are on every street corner. I wanted to use creatures that were not human, so the lions were perfect.
"I also needed a kind of mentor for Merle. The obvious thing would have been to have some kind of Gandalf or Merlin figure, which I wanted to avoid. I wanted some kind of spirit presence, and somehow I arrived at the water as being that spirit.
"I like scary stuff in my books. The envoy from Hell looks like a huge baby with barbed wire around it; it is a kind of a collage from images I got from several art books and which I found quite intriguing.
"The two other volumes of the trilogy have already been published in Germany. In the second book, Merle and the Flowing Queen go to Hell itself, while Egypt invades Venice and the Pharaoh makes his headquarters in the Doge’s palace. The third volume is set in an Egypt covered in snow."
Kai Meyer The Flowing Queen (Egmont, 9th May, h/b, £12.99, 1405216387)