Twelve-year-old Annie is invited to Hexer Hall to work as a servant for the mysterious Lady Hexer.  Carvings of snakes are everywhere and when Annie touches one, she travels back in time to when the Hall was a leper hospital run by a sinister doctor with a collection of terrifying serpents.  Annie never wants to return, but Lady Hexer demands she finds a way to steal the doctor’s book of magical cures. She promises it will rid the world of disease, including tuberculosis, which killed Annie’s mother. Summoning all her courage, Annie travels back in time again … The Serpent House is aimed at Middle Grade age children, although I loved reading it as an adult too. Bea DavenportBea Davenport is the writing name of former BBC journalist Barbara Henderson. Bea’s debut crime/suspense novel In Too Deep was a runner-up in the annual Luke Bitmead award and published in 2013 by Legend Press, who also published This Little Piggy (2014) in the same genre. Her first children’s novel, The Serpent House, was written as part of her Creative Writing PhD. It was shortlisted for a Times/Chicken House award before being published by Curious Fox (2014). My Cousin Faustina (2015) was originally written as an interactive e-book for reluctant readers and is now published in paperback by ReadZone Books.  The Misper, Bea’s novel for teens/YA, was published in 2018 by The Conrad Press. Bea teaches journalism and creative writing and lives in Berwick upon Tweed. What inspired you to write a time slip?The story of The Serpent House actually came about because of the place where I live, which is called Spittal. It got its name from a medieval leper hospital which used to be there. It fascinated me that somewhere under the pavements where I walk every day, there are the remains of this hospital. I also wanted to write something in a sort of tribute to my three great-aunts, who were maids and cooks in large houses in Newcastle and Cumbria at the turn of the twentieth century. So a timeslip idea linked the two periods together – the Victorian maid Annie was able to travel back to the medieval leper hospital. Also, I really love timeslip novels – Tom’s Midnight Garden is one of my all-time favourite children’s books. The more timeslip novels I read, the more exciting I realised they could be.Why did you choose to write about leprosy?It started with that local history about the leper hospital that used to be in the village where I live, but when I did research I realised it was not really covered often in children’s historical fiction (unlike the plague, which is covered quite a lot!). Although leprosy has died out in the west, it’s still a problem in developing countries. The charity Lepra helped me a lot with my research.What do the plants that start to take over the garden mean? Are they actually from the past?Yes! I was very inspired by a visit to a medieval herb garden in France and I realised that lots of the plants had snake-like names and qualities.So I wanted …