Goodreads asked Leslie Garland:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Leslie Garland Right now, here in Britain, we are having a debate - though it is more of a silly slanging match! - about whether we should stay in or leave the EU. But who is telling the truth? Unfortunately for us voters nothing is black and white and yet we are having to choose on the basis of the dodgy “facts” that are being presented to us. Just great!
Is there a parallel with religion? Should we opt to stay with it, or leave it? And what are the facts, what is the truth? I thought it might be worth having a look at exploring the truth, or otherwise, of our religion using a story as a foil. Quite deliberately I modelled at least part of it on Genesis, with my innocent narrator starting out in his Garden of Eden and, following the arrival of a new teacher at his school and then some stuffed animal exhibits which it turned out weren't quite as dead as they appeared, gradually waking up to the fact that there is evil out there in the real world and having to decide who is good and who is not, and which version of events to believe in, and hence what is true and what is not?
Right now I am putting the finishing touches to it and hope it won't be too long before it is published. Of course I am not going tell you either how the story ends, or what conclusions our narrator draws! I hope you won't have too long to wait.

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