The Trivial Tragedy of Hilda the Vegetarian Vampire Bat

Every year in Vampire Creek there is an initiation ball for adolescent bats who have not yet tasted human blood. Hilda, a vegetarian, is blissfully ignorant of the purpose of the ball.

Devoted to her lentils, Hilda lives with her curmudgeonly maid Matilda and her cynical cat, Wiglaf, and has no idea what her fangs are for. She attends the ball dressed in white when it is compulsory to wear red, and sticks out like a sore thumb.

Hilda doesn’t care: she has secured Handsome Harry as her beau, the catch of the creek. She has turned her friend and arch-rival Adelaide green with envy.

But Hilda has offended Queen Gwendolyn and her husband Mad King Ludo the Bonny by not wearing red to the ball.

What fate will befall her?

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Beth Boland was born in Bury, Lancashire, and now lives in West London.

The Trivial Tragedy of Hilda the Vegetarian Vampire Bat is Beth’s first published work, but will by no means be her last.

Among her influences are Lewis Carroll, Ogden Nash and Edward Lear; she read their works prolifically as a child. The Trivial Tragedy of Hilda contains several passages of nonsense poetry, which she could not have written without these great authors.

Beth also illustrated this book. When she first conceived of an anthropoid bat she realized it was a creature only she could create. She picked up a paintbrush and put onto paper pictures of Hilda, her maid Matilda, her inamorato Handsome Harry, Wiglaf the cat and of course her rival in love, Adelaide. They took some three years to produce.

Beth completed a Creative & Life Writing MA at Goldsmith’s College, London University in 2009. Her tutor was Blake Morrison who greatly influenced her. Before this, she studied English Literature at Leicester University at BA Level, graduating in 1982.

She is planning a follow-up book to Hilda – not a sequel but something similar.

Beth is a lover of music; being a pianist, a singer and songwriter. Her favourite artist is Kate Bush who she regards as a genius and as great as Debussy or Ravel. When she was seventeen, she wrote to Kate Bush and got a lovely reply, which she has kept to this day.

Download a copy of the Advance Information for The Trivial Tragedy of Hilda the Vegetarian Vampire Bat here.