Monthly Archives: February 2012

J.K. Rowling’s first non-Potter novel!!!! For adults!!!!

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This news deserves extra exclamation marks! J.K. Rowling is finally going to publish her first non-Harry Potter novel, and it’s for adults, to boot.

*let’s bring out our clapper for the second time today*

Little, Brown Book Group and Little, Brown and Company are delighted to announce that they will publish J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults worldwide in the English language, both in print and ebooks.

David Shelley, Publisher, Little, Brown Book Group, will be J.K. Rowling’s editor and will be responsible for publication in the United Kingdom with Michael Pietsch, Executive Vice President of Little, Brown and Company, responsible for publication in the United States. The book will be published by Hachette in Australia and in New Zealand and by Hachette’s companies and normal appointed agents for the English language in other markets.

The title, the date for the worldwide publication and further details about the novel will be announced later in the year.

In the press release (full text here: click!), she said that it’s only fitting that she work with another publisher for this new phase of her career. I think it’s a good move, especially if we’re talking about the huge sales that will be generated by just her name on the cover alone. Harry Potter has made millions for Bloomsbury, Scholastic, and her other international publishers, and it’s nice to know that JKR is spreading the love around by giving this book to Little, Brown.

Of course, LB already has The Twilight Saga as the big moneymaker on its roster, so… good job, LB, good job. ;)

I’ve worried for so long about how she can’t seem to tear herself away from Potter after repeatedly saying that Deathly Hallows will be the last of it. We got The Tales of Beedle the Bard, her producing credits for the last 2 Potter films, and Pottermore. Not that I’m complaining, but I love JKR’s writing, and I don’t want her to go down in history as a one-trick pony, so this new book is welcome news.

I wonder what kind of story JKR has seen fit to throw at her adult fans. I hope it’s not a fantasy novel. Or if it is, I hope that the fantasy part is more subdued. If it turns out to have even half the kind of wit and detailed plotting of the Potter books, though, I can breathe a sigh of relief.

But oh, the critics and fans alike who will most likely look at this novel under their version of an electron microscope! Oh, the pressure to come out with something brilliant!

No matter what, this Rowling fan is still going to buy it and read it. *excited*

…

Edited to add: Lisa reminded me of that old speculation that JKR’s next non-Potter book will be a mystery, but it was from an unconfirmed source. Well, JKR can probably write a great mystery, something like an Agatha Christie meets Katherine Neville. Or maybe a Steve Berry-esque historical adventure with a dash of fantasy? Hrmmm…

And so begins The Great Next Novel Speculation.

What do you think it’ll be, folks?

…

Edit #2: JKR just tweeted!


 

Snapshots: Today’s fangirl squeeing is brought to you by…

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…Laini Taylor!

I just posted my thoughts on Lips Touch: Three Times, when my Dad said he finally had time to pick up my parcel from the post office.

Turns out it’s the mystery prize I won by helping Laini count and match names and entry numbers for one of her contests. Honestly, I was just very very lucky that I was online at the time, since she seems to have posted the announcement when most of the Western world was asleep. :P

"Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer" signed by Laini Taylor and Jim DiBartolo


 
*squeeeeee!*

*much virtual jumping and skipping around going on, too*

And now to hunt for Silksinger!

“Lips Touch: Three Times” by Laini Taylor

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Title: Lips Touch: Three Times
Author: Laini Taylor
Read Date: 14 February 2012 (how appropriate!)
Goodreads Reading Progress Status Updates: Click here.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Review Preview: I was enchanted. Three times.
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Three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers’ souls:

Goblin Fruit: In Victorian times, goblin men had only to offer young girls sumptuous fruits to tempt them to sell their souls. But what does it take to tempt today’s savvy girls?

Spicy Little Curses Such As These: A demon and the ambassador to Hell tussle over the soul of a beautiful English girl in India. Matters become complicated when she falls in love and decides to test her curse.

Hatchling: Six days before Esme’s fourteenth birthday, her left eye turns from brown to blue. She little suspects what the change heralds, but her small safe life begins to unravel at once. What does the beautiful, fanged man want with her, and how is her fate connected to a mysterious race of demons?

Once upon a time, the Creator showered the Gift of Words upon the Earth and somehow, an inordinate amount gravitated toward Laini Taylor.

Lips Touch: Three Times is an impressive collection of stories which showcases Taylor’s mastery of evoking images and emotions using her words, and her husband Jim DiBartolo’s distinctive and breathtaking art.

What I loved, in general, about the three stories in this book, is how well Taylor seems to understand human nature and our deepest hopes and fears, and how well she manages to articulate all of it as if she can read our souls.

Kizzy wanted to be a woman who would dive off the prow of a sailboat into the sea, who would fall back in a tangle of sheets, laughing, and who could dance a tango, lazily stroke a leopard with her bare feet, freeze an enemy’s blood with her eyes, make promises she couldn’t possibly keep, and then shift the world to keep them. She wanted to write memoirs and autograph them at a tiny bookshop in Rome, with a line of admirers snaking down a pink-lit alley. She wanted to make love on a balcony, ruin someone, trade in esoteric knowledge, watch strangers as coolly as a cat. She wanted to be inscrutable, to have a drink named after her, a love song written for her, and a handsome adventurer’s small airplane champagne-christened Kizzy.

 
Goblin Fruit is the shortest story of the three, but it’s also the most whimsical. It reads like a fairy tale, so much so that if I were a screenwriter on Grimm, I’d probably ask permission to write an episode based on this. :P And Taylor’s style is so evocative, I could almost taste that kiss and that fruit.

Spicy Little Curses Such As These is my favorite of the three. If I were an animator like the awesome Ben Hibon (of The Tale of the Three Brothers fame), I’d turn this story into an animated short film. I love the exotic Indian setting, the Maleficent homage, the mythology, the classic Lost Diary plot point, and just the entire crafting of the story, really.

He had imagined himself, fancifully, to be half in love with the writer of the mysterious diary, but now, seeing her, that vague fancy was swept away by the exhilaration of actually falling in love with her, not by halves, but fully and profoundly.

 
Hatchling is the more fantastical of the three. If I were Tim Burton or maybe Henry Selick, I’d make a movie out of this one. I love how Laini also drew from world mythology like she did with Spicy Little Curses, but still managed to come up with something unusual. The world has a Labyrinth / The Dark Crystal / Mirrormask kind of vibe to it, but probably a little wilder, what with the supernatural creatures involved.

For all three stories, Taylor definitely delivered on her promise that the kisses will have profound consequences. Yup, it all started with a kiss!

I may gush and rave about this book all I want here, but I don’t believe I can adequately capture the magic and draw of Lips Touch. My advice? Buy it. Read it. Reread it. Fall under its spell three times. Every time.

Cover Reveal: “The Raven Boys” and “Taste”

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Maggie Stiefvater recently announced that her new project is a 4-book series called The Raven Cycle. The first book is The Raven Boys.

Filled with mystery, romance, and the supernatural, The Raven Boys introduces readers to Richard “Dick” Campbell Gansey, III and Blue Sargent. Gansey has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on the hunt to find Glendower, a vanished Welsh king. Legend has it that the first person to find him will be granted a wish—either by seeing him open his eyes, or by cutting out his heart.

Blue Sargent, the daughter of the town psychic in Henrietta, Virginia, has been told for as long as she can remember that if she ever kisses her true love, he will die. But she is too practical to believe in things like true love. Her policy is to stay away from the rich boys at the prestigious Aglionby Academy. The boys there—known as Raven Boys—can only mean trouble. When Gansey and his Raven Boy friends come into her life, Blue realizes how true this is. She never thought her fortune would be a problem. But she was wrong.

Maggie has additional info about her main characters, and a song that inspired her while she was writing, here: click!

I’m excited to read this come September 18th, and hope that Maggie will continue to exceed the quality of her writing with each new novel.

I’m likewise excited to read the new YA supernatural romance by Filipino author Kate Evangelista, entitled Taste.

At Barinkoff Academy, there’s only one rule: no students on campus after curfew. Phoenix McKay soon finds out why when she is left behind at sunset. A group calling themselves night students threaten to taste her flesh until she is saved by a mysterious, alluring boy. With his pale skin, dark eyes, and mesmerizing voice, Demitri is both irresistible and impenetrable. He warns her to stay away from his dangerous world of flesh eaters. Unfortunately, the gorgeous and playful Luka has other plans.

When Phoenix is caught between her physical and her emotional attraction, she becomes the keeper of a deadly secret that will rock the foundations of an ancient civilization living beneath Barinkoff Academy. Phoenix doesn’t realize until it is too late that the closer she gets to both Demitri and Luka the more she is plunging them all into a centuries old feud.

The lovely cover is by artist Liliana Sanchez.

There’s no release date set for Taste just yet, however, there’s more info about the book here: click!

I’m curious to see how a Filipino author will spin a supernatural YA tale with non-native characters, settings, and mythology. I know that good writers can mask their ethnicity when they write fantasy, but when the author’s own culture bleeds through the stories a little, sometimes it makes for a more interesting read.

Snapshots: These books have British accents

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Caution: O.C. Fangirl Blogging

When I started collecting Brandon Sanderson’s books, the very first one I bought was the UK mass market edition of Mistborn: The Final Empire. Although the US covers look and feel more like classic fantasy, the UK covers have a certain minimalist appeal. I tend to be OC about editions, so I hounded the stores until I got the entire Mistborn trilogy in matching editions.

I made sure to get the UK editions for his subsequent epic fantasies, although I gave up on getting them all in mass market format because Gollancz’s mass market The Way of Kings was split into 2 volumes. And when The Alloy of Law came out, the local store stocked only the regular paperback.

The UK edition of Warbreaker very recently appeared in another local store, so I got a copy even though I already read the e-book, so that I can complete my collection. I also want to read Warbreaker again to stick tabs on the pages with my favorite passages, and to just generally enjoy all of Lightsong’s witty dialogue. And I couldn’t resist the lilac-colored font. :P

(O.C. comment: Warbreaker’s title doesn’t have curliques on the spine. It bothers me.)

As you can see, my copy of Elantris is still a mass market US; it looks so out-of-place in that group. Keep an eye out for the UK edition in stores for me, will you, Pinoy friends? :D

So why do I like collecting the UK editions aside from the endless amusement I get when I imagine hearing the narrator speak in a British accent inside my head? If you don’t have the moolah to get a hardbound copy, then the UK mass markets are a good value for your money. They normally cost just as much as the US mass market, but the UK MMPs, particularly the Gollancz ones, have better paper and print quality. The British eds are also a little bigger (Elantris and Mistborn in the photo above are both classified as MMPs), so the font size is more comfortable for the eyes.

As for Sanderson’s other books, I’m still missing volumes 3 and 4 of his Alcatraz series for young adults. I got the 1st volume at the Scholastic Warehouse Sale, and the 2nd just randomly appeared in another store. I saw volume 3 somewhere else, but it’s a hardbound copy, and I’m hesitant to get it.

And although I’m 25 pages into the 1st volume of The Wheel of Time, um…that’s not on the table today, ‘kay? ‘Kay. :P

Next mission: Procure a copy of the Mistborn Adventure Game.
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Shout-outs! — Thanks to Aaron for the heads-up on Warbreaker, and to Leia for calling the store to reserve a copy for me. :D