Peter Bunzl Books in Order

For the full steampunk adventure: Cogheart → Moonlocket → Skycircus → Shadowsea
If you want fairy curses and magic: Magicborn → Glassborn
If you want a shorter historical adventure: The Clockwork Queen
If you want a quick, stormy myth tale: Featherlight

Peter Bunzl was born and raised in London, and grew up in South London in a rambling Victorian house that sounds a bit like the start of one of his own stories. There were pets everywhere, an antique-dealer dad, an artist mum, and plenty of old objects and odd corners to fire his imagination. His mother worked as a costume designer for film and television, so he also got to peek behind the scenes of sets and see how stories were built.

He was making stories long before he published one.

As a child he wrote and drew little books and comics for his family, stapling the pages together and designing covers for them. Later, as a teenager, he got hooked on animation and began thinking about stories in pictures, movement, and scenes. He loved comics too, and that clear, energetic way of storytelling still shows in his books.

Bunzl studied art and then animation at the National Film & Television School. Before turning to novels, he worked on the cartoon series Yoko! Jakamoko! Toto! and The Secret Show, and he also wrote and directed short films of his own. One of those, Mind Games, was a finalist for Virgin Media Shorts and was shown in cinemas across the UK.

Books came a little later, but not by accident. He has said that Cogheart first began life as a screenplay, and that writing classes helped him see it would work better as prose. He published his first professional book at forty, which feels like a useful reminder that a writing career does not have to arrive early to be real.

Cogheart was the book that opened the door. It introduced Lily Hartman, Robert, and the wonderful mechanical fox Malkin, then threw them into a steampunk Victorian world full of airships, automatons, danger, and family secrets. Readers tend to come for the clockwork animals and breakneck chases, then stay for the friendships, the grief, and the big-hearted sense that clever children can still change things.

He likes putting history, hope, and strange machinery in the same room.

That carries through the later Cogheart books, from Moonlocket and Skycircus to Shadowsea, where mystery and adventure keep widening around questions of identity, belonging, and what family really means. In Magicborn and Glassborn, he shifts into Georgian historical fantasy, with Fairyland, curses, royal courts, and children trying to outwit much older powers. Even his shorter books, like Featherlight and The Clockwork Queen, have the same pull, brave young characters, a strong sense of place, and real stakes.

A few things come up again and again in Bunzl's work. He likes outsiders, hidden histories, magical or mechanical objects, and children who win by being observant, loyal, and quick-thinking rather than by being the strongest person in the room. He also likes worlds where the past feels close enough to touch, whether that means Victorian London, Kensington Palace in 1726, or a storm-lashed island lighthouse.

His books have been shortlisted for major children's prizes, and Cogheart quickly found a big readership. He still draws on the same things that hooked him early on, comics, films, old machinery, and the weird corners of history. These days he lives in London with his cat and dog and writes full time, still building stories where brave children face dark things with brains, loyalty, and a little wonder.