A fan of mine called JAY emailed me recently to say:

"I’ve just started reading The Belgariad series and saw your quote in the front of the book. I’ve been a massive fan of your books for some time and wondered if anything from this series has helped inspire your work. I saw some parallels in Belgarath and Beranabus and wanted to see if it was a little Easter egg!"

Jay was partly right about the Belgariad easter egg, but got the wrong book and characters! While Belgarath might have been a subconscious influence on Beranabus in my Demonata series, in my vampire books Vancha and Evanna both owed a very conscious debt to a character from the Belgariad called Beldin!!! :-)

I love The Belgariad and read the books several times in my teenage years. They definitely were a big influence on me, and I recomend them most wholeheartedly -- which is why I gave the publishers a quote which they used on some of the covers when the series was refreshed a few years back. (And the teenager in me still finds it rather surreal that a quote of MINE has been used to help plug one of my favourite series!!!)