First of all I absolutely LOVED the books! They are my all time favorites! Thank you so much for writing them!

Well, to business.

Amanda, is she a magician, or a commoner?
In the end of AoS Bartimaeus took her guise and tricked Lovelace, we all know that. But in the beginning, when Bart was stealing the amulet he dwelled on taking N's guise but said that he needs the person's birth name to become them, this is how he becomes Ptolemy and Kitty later on. So if 'Amanda' was her real name, that means she can't be a magician, but how can she be a commoner if she's rich? I mean, she's having this big party at her place, and all the cool kids from the government are invited... what's up with that? Why would the PM go to a ball in a commoner's house? Also, if she is a commoner, why would Lovelace be with her?
So who is she?

By the way, I live in Israel, and I know there’s a Hebrew translation but I still read the books in English, the original is far better I always say, with the true touch of the author. Yep, and also, (as far as I know) your books are not very well known in Israel, at least, I’m the only one who read them in my school… and we’ve got this book report we have to do in English, so naturally I’m doing mine on AoS, (my fav), other kids are just taking books form the school library. I’ve asked around and saw that all the other kids think this report is torture because the only English books our library has are kitsch romantic novels written like, a hundred years ago(!) nothing against old novels, it’s just not very suitable for non English speaker kids. So I recommended Bartimaeus trilogy and the library bought it! So now I’m happy and I just thought you might want to know I’m doing some advertisement for you here :D spreading the word!

Yep. I’m getting mouthy here so I’m gonna stop.
And take your time :-)

Yours truly,
Ebele

Hello Ebele,

Thanks for your great message, and for spreading the word in Israel! Sounds as if I owe you commission for all that advertising... How did your book report go in the end? I'm hugely impressed with anyone who can read a book in two different languages. It would be fascinating to compare them, side by side, and see which jokes were kept and which left out, etc. Well, I very much hope to come over to Israel one day - I actually got invited to attend a book festival there this autumn, but I sadly I couldn't make it this time. Hopefully there'll be another opportunity soon...

Amanda: you're right about the birth-name thing. She has to be a commoner. The answer is that although the magicians dominate English society, and have done for more than a hundred years, there are still some rich families left over from earlier times who, for one reason or another, haven't been killed off or bought out by the magicians. Probably these families can supply things that the magicians want (land, timber, agricultual supplies, maybe... or just the kudos of old wealth); in return people like Amanda gravitate towards the status and power of the new magical elite. Through Lovelace she imagines she'll become close to the centre of things. As she does... for a short while.

All the best,

Jonathan