Adventure and Mystery: A Guest Post by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
Taking young readers back to WWII, The Bletchley Riddle is the story of two brilliant siblings making a big difference in a dangerous world from two bestselling authors. Ruta Sepetys (Salt to the Sea, The Fountains of Silence) and Steve Sheinkin (Bomb, Undefeated) joined forces to pen an exclusive essay on their collaboration process and the inspiration behind their book, down below.
Hardcover $18.99
The Bletchley Riddle
The Bletchley Riddle
By Ruta Sepetys , Steve Sheinkin
In Stock Online
Hardcover $18.99
A stunning collaboration between award-winning and bestselling authors Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin, this middle grade historical adventure follows two siblings at Bletchley Park, the home of WWII codebreakers, as they try to unravel a mystery surrounding their mother’s disappearance.
A stunning collaboration between award-winning and bestselling authors Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin, this middle grade historical adventure follows two siblings at Bletchley Park, the home of WWII codebreakers, as they try to unravel a mystery surrounding their mother’s disappearance.
So many great adventure stories begin with a young character being whisked away to some mysterious or enchanting school—you can probably name a few. But did you know that this sort of thing really happened in Britain at the start of World War II?
It did, and this history was one of the main inspirations for our new novel, The Bletchley Riddle.
Established in London after the First World War, the UK’s Government Code and Cypher School was tasked with cracking other countries’ secret communications. In the late 1930s, when it became clear that Adolf Hitler intended to ignite another war, British leaders decided to move the school to a remote location that would be safer from Nazi bombers—and prying eyes. The spot they picked was a mansion in the countryside of Buckinghamshire called Bletchley Park.
In terms of eccentricity and odd charm, Hogwarts has nothing on Bletchley Park. The mansion is full of hidden nooks and creaky passageways, and the sprawling grounds, at the time of our story, even had a massive hedge maze (which, of course, we had to work into the plot.) Young people were key members of the codebreaking staff, and some were actually pulled from classrooms and campuses with a mysterious directive that would change their life forever: “Report to Station X.”
So, how’d we come to collaborate in the first place? In 2019, we were at a panel at a literacy conference in New Orleans. The moderator posed a question to the panelists about an author they might like to collaborate with—living or dead. Fortunately, we were both very much alive and, fortunately, we looked at each other in answer to the question. We had long admired each other’s work and had shared an agent for years. Immediately after the panel, we started batting around ideas and pretty quickly hit on the plan of a novel set at Bletchley Park during the summer of 1940.
We’re both research nerds and proud of it, so the research for this book was an absolute pleasure. After reading everything we could find on the subject, we traveled to London together and scouted locations for key scenes. We spent a couple days at Bletchley Park, which really is like strolling onto the set of a BBC historical drama. The Park’s official historian, Dr. David Kenyon, sat with us and patiently answered our many, many questions.
All that remained was to, well, write the actual book. Living hundreds of miles apart, we worked out the twists and turns in a series of marathon video calls, then exchanged drafts by email. Perhaps inspired by the sibling rivalry between our main characters and narrators, Lizzie and Jakob, we embraced the challenge of trying to surprise each other with every new batch of pages. The result is a book packed with things we love as readers: adventure and mystery, puzzles and humor, family secrets and hidden history. And most of all—a story experience that invites readers to play along as detectives. Can you solve the riddle?
