Upcoming: BELZHAR by Meg Wolitzer (Dutton)

I’ve only read a little bit of Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings. While I thought it was very well written, it just wasn’t for me. Then I spotted this novel, which I thought sounded interesting. Here’s the synopsis:

If life were fair, Jam Gallahue would still be  at home in New Jersey with her sweet British  boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield. She’d be watching  old comedy sketches with him. She’d be kissing  him in the library stacks.

She certainly wouldn’t be at The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic boarding school in rural Vermont, living with a weird roommate, and signed up for an exclusive, mysterious class called Special Topics in English.

But life isn’t fair, and Reeve Maxfield is dead.

Until a journal-writing assignment leads Jam to Belzhar, where the untainted past is restored, and Jam can feel Reeve’s arms around her once again. But there are hidden truths on Jam’s path to reclaim her loss.

Belzhar is due to be published in the US by Dutton (Penguin), on September 30th, 2014; and in the UK by Simon & Schuster, on October 9th (for some reason, I could not find a UK cover for the novel – given how close it is to publication, this is rather baffling).

“The Magician King” by Lev Grossman (Plume/Arrow)

A superb follow-up to The Magicians

Quentin and his friends are now the kings and queens of Fillory, but the days and nights of royal luxury are starting to pall. After a morning hunt takes a sinister turn, Quentin and his old friend Julia charter a magical sailing ship and set out on an errand to the wild outer reaches of their kingdom.

Their pleasure cruise becomes an adventure when the two are unceremoniously dumped back into the last place Quentin ever wants to see: his parent’s house in Chesterton, Massachusetts. And only the black, twisted magic that Julia learned on the streets can save them.

In an effort to catch up for the third volume in Lev Grossman’s Magicians series, here’s my very quick review of The Magician King: it’s an excellent follow-up to a brilliant first installment. If you haven’t read this series yet, I strongly urge you do so. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Q&A with ELIZABETH GILBERT

Recently, Penguin Books organised a Q&A with Elizabeth Gilbert, the mega-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love. With the recent publication of her latest book, the novel The Signature of Things, I’m sharing some excerpts from that long Q&A…

After the incredible dual successes of your memoirs Eat, Pray, Love and Committed, the safer, more obvious choice for you would have been to continue in nonfiction. What was it that prompted you to return to writing novels with THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS?

I needed to come home to my roots as a writer. Fiction is where I began my writing journey, and all I ever wanted to be was a pure novelist. Fate intervened and led me into the world of memoir (and believe me, I am grateful for my success there!) but the next thing I knew, a dozen years had passed since I’d written a word of fiction. I simply couldn’t let another year go by, so I embarked on this novel.

How difficult is it for you to shift gears between genres?

I thought it would be more difficult than it was. I feared I had lost the skill of fiction entirely (almost the way you can lose a foreign language if you don't practice it often) and so I was intimidated by the prospect of returning to the form of a novel. As a result of my fear, I over-prepared for this book ridiculously. I did ten times the research I actually needed, just to feel covered and safe. Up till the very day I put down the research and began actually writing the novel, I honestly wasn’t sure if I could do it. But as soon as I began, the moment Alma was born, I realized, “Oh! I was so wrong! Fiction isn’t a foreign language; it’s my mother tongue!” I had forgotten nothing, except the joy of it. It felt like a homecoming.

This Urban Fantasy Hero is Not Impressed…

I received the UK edition of Nalini Singh’s Shield of Winter from Gollancz, today. While looking up information and getting cover images for my next “Books Received” post, I found the US cover (right). I thought the fella’s pose just looked so… unimpressed with the situation, that I had to share it here.

Assassin. Soldier. Arrow. That is who Vasic is, who he will always be. His soul drenched in blood, his conscience heavy with the weight of all he's done, he exists in the shadows, far from the hope his people can almost touch – if only they do not first drown in the murderous insanity of a lethal contagion. To stop the wave of death, Vasic must complete the simplest and most difficult mission of his life.

For if the Psy race is to survive, the empaths must wake…

Having rebuilt her life after medical 'treatment' that violated her mind and sought to stifle her abilities, Ivy should have run from the black-clad Arrow with eyes of winter frost. But Ivy Jane has never done what she should. Now, she’ll fight for her people, and for this Arrow who stands as her living shield, yet believes he is beyond redemption.

But as the world turns to screaming crimson, even Ivy’s fierce will may not be enough to save Vasic from the cold darkness…

Shield of Winter will be published in the UK by Gollancz and Berkley in the US, at the beginning of June 2014. Here’s the UK cover…

US/Canada Giveaway: SWORN IN STEEL by Doug Hulick (Ace)

One of the most-anticipated follow-up fantasy novels of the year, Ace Books has provided three copies of Doug Hulick’s SWORN IN STEEL! All you have to do to enter the competition is leave a comment or email me (at the address at the bottom of the page), and I’ll randomly select three winners on Friday evening. Competition is open to US and Canadian residents only, I’m afraid.

In case you haven’t heard of the series (shame on you!), here is the synopsis for Sworn in Steel…

It’s been three months since Drothe killed a legend, burned down a portion of the imperial capital, and unexpectedly elevated himself into the ranks of the criminal elite.

Now, as the newest Gray Prince in the underworld, he’s learning just how good he used to have it. With barely the beginnings of an organization to his name, Drothe is already being called out by other Gray Princes. And to make matters worse, when one dies, all signs point to Drothe as wielding the knife. As members of the Kin begin choosing sides – mostly against him – for what looks to be another impending war, Drothe is approached by a man who not only has the solution to Drothe’s most pressing problem, but an offer of redemption.

The only problem is the offer isn’t for him. Now Drothe finds himself on the way to the Despotate of Djan, the empire’s long-standing enemy, with an offer to make and a price on his head. And the grains of sand in the hour glass are running out, fast…

Both Among Thieves and Sworn in Steel are out now in the US, published by Ace Books (Penguin). The novels are published in the UK by Tor, and Sworn in Steel is out tomorrow! Among Thieves was published in 2011. You can find my review here, and an interview with the author here.

Joël Dicker introduces THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HARRY QUEBERT AFFAIRS (Penguin US, MacLehose Press UK)

Last week, I published my review of Joël Dicker’s debut novel and international sensation, THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HARRY QUEBERT AFFAIR. A thoroughly enjoyable read, the novel was provided for review by Dicker’s UK publisher, MacLehose Press (an imprint of Quercus). This week, I have a video interview with the author to share, provided by his American publisher, Penguin:

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair is published in the UK on April 30th, 2014, and in the US on May 27th, 2014.

US & UK Covers

Q&A with Meg Howrey, one half of MAGNUS FLYTE

Meg Howrey is one half of the writing team that goes by the name “Magnus Flyte” – Christina Lynch forms the other half. Their second novel, City of Lost Dreams, was released in the US yesterday by Penguin (it is also available in the UK). Penguin US organised a Q&A, which is reproduced below, in which Howrey discusses writing as a partnership, cake (such good cake…), and the two novels (of course).

Cover Reveal: “The Invention of Wings” by Sue Monk Kidd (Viking)

THE INVENTION OF WINGS is the next novel by Sue Monk Kidd, whose debut novel was the mega-selling The Secret Life of Bees. The reason I’m sharing the image, despite being a rather nice cover, is because my eye was caught by the data on the aforementioned debut:

The Secret Life of Bees spent 175 weeks on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list; it has sold more than six million copies in the United States alone; it has been translated into 36 languages. And it was turned into an award-winning movie. That’s incredible. Now, all I have to do is write one similarly excellent, and I can stop worrying about making enough money to buy food… [Only half kidding…] Incidentally, Kidd’s second novel also landed on the New York Times bestseller list at number one.*

The Invention of Wings has been described as “a sweeping novel of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world.” The novel is due to be published in January 2014 in the US by Viking (Penguin). With my new plans to start featuring more non-speculative, non-SFF novels on the blog, I think I may just have to get my hands on a copy of this. Here is a sort-of-synopsis, from the publisher:

The Invention of Wings tells the entwined stories of Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early 19th century Charleston, who yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls of the wealthy Grimke household and the Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, a real-life historical figure, who grows up to become a leading abolitionist and women’s rights pioneer. Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented.

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* After working in and around the publishing industry for almost a year, I am finding numbers like these increasingly impressive, now that I’ve discovered just how nuts the industry actually is…

Guest Post: “Language and World-Building” by Emily Croy Barker

What sort of languages do they speak in other worlds? I gave some serious thought to this matter in writing my novel, The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic — and was intrigued and inspired to discover, in reading about the life of J.R.R. Tolkien, that the same question had helped spark the creation of Middle-earth itself.

Tolkien was 22 years old and a philology student at Oxford University when he encountered the eighth-century Old English poem Crist by Cynewulf. As Colin Duriez writes in J.R.R. Tolkien: The Making of a Legend, the poem included a couple of lines that Tolkien found intensely evocative:

Eala Earendel engla beorhtast

Ofer middangeard monnum sended.

“Hail, Earendel, of angels the brightest,

Sent over middle-earth to mankind.”

Quick Q&A with SUSAN CHOI

I’ve been trying to expand the coverage of the blog, into other genres and sub-genres of fiction. To this end, today I bring you a Q&A with author Susan Choi, author of My Education, organised by Penguin USA…

Your previous novels deal with high stakes: the Unabomber, kidnapping, wars overseas, terrorism. Did you find writing My Education, a story that deals with more typical problems of passion, ambition, and love, to be a different experience?

I did, in a good way. For all three of my previous books I did tons of research into Twentieth Century history, and politics, and ideology, and loved immersing myself in abstruse and challenging material, and then after finishing A Person of Interest, I had another baby (my second) and the very thought of research just made me pass out. I realized I wanted to write a book about people being young and falling in love and behaving stupidly, and that I probably didn’t need to do research for that. Now my kids are older and I’m getting sleep again at night and I’m back to doing abstruse research!  But this book was a great change for me.

What was your inspiration for this novel?

Apart from wanting to avoid research, I was actually inspired in a very specific way by a book that I love, Allan Hollinghurst’s novel The Line of Beauty.  I haven’t been more enthralled, and admiring, of a novel in I don’t know how long.  And something about the way that book opens, with Nick in a bookstore thinking about a much older, more powerful man that he knows, and being so full of youthful moxie and naïveté, brought an opening scene, fully realized, into my mind.  That’s happened to me a couple of times, and it’s thrilling:  you know there’s a novel, and that you’ve found the entrance, but you have no idea what it contains.

You currently teach at Princeton University and both My Education and your last novel, A Person of Interest, feature professors as their protagonists, so it’s safe to assume you are well-versed in the culture of academia. How does your experience in the world of academia play out in your fiction?

I think I’m less well-versed in the culture of academia than poorly-versed in anything else. Esoteric worlds are hard to resist in fiction, and academia can be pretty esoteric. If I had more experience with the esoteric world of the CIA operative, or the mafia don, I’d definitely write about that. But, I am a professor’s daughter, and I guess that’s bequeathed a certain compulsion on my part to keep poking around in that region.

Motherhood impacts the relationship between Regina and Martha over the entire course of the novel; in the end, it seems to be one of the primary means through which they absolve the past. How have your own children affected your writing and your perception of the world?

Only totally. Parenthood has completely rewired me. Things that used to enthrall me now bore me, and things I never used to notice now obsess me, and that’s just one aspect of it. I think a lot, now, about children’s lives. Much of what happens to Regina in this book, to my mind, is that she realizes that children are people.

Being a love story, what kind of tropes of romance were you wary of? What did you hope to bring to the table with this novel?

I always saw this first as a story about being young. It is a love story, but the love story is a vehicle for exploring the youthful innocence, and selfishness, and unsustainable craziness of being a young person in love, and of being a young person in general. I think this novel is my way of coming to terms with my not being particularly young anymore.

For Regina, any contemplation of sexual identity seems to be on the backburner. Did you have any intentional reason for refraining from that sort of discussion?

Identity politics are very popular with Regina’s classmates, but they’re just not a part of her being. I’d be dragging the story into didactic territory, and maybe turning it into one of the dreary, insincere term papers Regina writes, if I had her sitting around contemplating her sexual identity, when everything about this situation is equally unfamiliar to her: Martha isn’t just a woman, she’s married, she’s a mother, she’s much older and more accomplished than Regina. For Regina the entire relationship is singular and unprecedented.  She doesn’t think, “Oh, I’m a lesbian,”  any more than she thinks, “Oh, I’m a home wrecker.”  She’s just insanely in love – a condition that makes it hard for her to do much clear thinking at all.

What are a few of your favorite love triangles (or rather quadrangles, to be most accurate to My Education) in literature, TV, or film?

I think we’re talking about a love square consisting of two equilateral triangles sharing one side. I actually had to draw a picture just now, to figure this out. I can’t think of other examples of this particular geometry although I’m sure there must be some. I do love the triangle, as who doesn’t. Two of my favorite books of all time, The Great Gatsby and The Age of Innocence, feature famous triangles. I also love the sad and quiet triangle at the center of J.L. Carr’s magnificent short novel, A Month in the Country. The ménage, a different arrangement altogether, can be very endearing. I loved April Ludgate and her gay boyfriend and his gay boyfriend, on Parks and Recreation. I was sad when she dumped them, but they certainly deserved it.

What do you think of Chaucer and the body of literature Nicholas teaches? Was this of particular interest to you when you were a student, or did you do the research for the sake of this novel?

As of this writing, I know less about Chaucer than Regina did when Nicholas hired her as his teaching assistant. I just wanted a subject matter that felt as far as possible from the groovy poststructuralist stuff that Regina was studying.

Do you have anything else in the works or projects on the horizon?

I am back in the throes of a research obsession, but I don’t know where it will lead me, if anywhere. Once I spent a year researching pirates, and then I wrote American Woman, which takes place completely on land. So I will have to wait and see.

*

My Education is published by Penguin US on July 3rd 2013, and Short Books in the UK on July 4th.

“The 5th Wave” by Rick Yancey (Penguin)

A Sinister new YA Dystopia Series

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.

Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother – or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.

There is a lot to like about this novel. The world-building is interesting, the characters are (for the most part) well-defined and well-written. The story is focused, giving it a quick-pace and addictive momentum. I really enjoyed reading this, despite one major niggle around the middle. Certainly, it’s easy to see why people have been talking about the series, and why Penguin think they are on to a winner. Among the better YA dystopia series, certainly.

An Interview with DEBORAH HARKNESS

Deborah Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches and it’s sequel, Shadow of Night, seem to have taken readers by storm (the former debuted on the New York Times Bestseller list at #2). The series features a mysterious, magical text, vampires and witches. It actually sounds pretty intriguing, and I should really get around to reading it at some point. (Emma already reviewed the first novel for CR, in February 2011.)

In celebration of the paperback release for the second novel (of three, in the All Souls trilogy), Harkness’s US publisher organised a Q&A. Below are some of her answers.

NB: I have tweaked the wording of the questions, but none of the author’s answers were changed, altered or truncated.

“Prince of Thorns” by Mark Lawrence (Voyager/Ace)

Review by Abhinav

“Before the thorns taught me their sharp lessons and bled weakness from me, I had but one brother, and I loved him well. But those days are gone and what is left of them lies in my mother’s tomb. Now I have many brothers, quick with knife and sword, and as evil as you please. We ride this broken empire and loot its corpse. They say these are violent times, the end of days when the dead roam and monsters haunt the night. All that’s true enough, but there’s something worse out there, in the dark. Much worse.”

From being a privileged royal child, raised by a loving mother, Jorg Ancrath has become the Prince of Thorns, a charming, immoral boy leading a grim band of outlaws in a series of raids and atrocities. The world is in chaos: violence is rife, nightmares everywhere. Jorg has the ability to master the living and the dead, but there is still one thing that puts a chill in him. Returning to his father’s castle, Jorg must confront horrors from his childhood and carve himself a future with all hands turned against him.

As I remarked in my review of Mazarkis Williams' The Emperor's Knife, I rarely do negative reviews. I fully support doing negative reviews, but I try and do as few of them as possible, since I’m far more interested in telling my readers about the great books that I’ve enjoyed reading. Mark Lawrence’s debut novel from last year, Prince of Thorns, unfortunately falls in the category of novels that I did not enjoy reading at all. It wasn’t as tough a read as The Emperor's Knife, but it was quite close.

Artwork: Myke Cole’s FORTRESS FRONTIER (Ace)

The new cover for Myke Cole’s second novel, Fortress Frontier, was revealed yesterday. And it’s a doozy:

I think I may prefer this to the original US cover for Control Point, but more because of the colour palette – I like the colder blues. This also does a great job of showing us the change in perspective (something Cole’s been keen to let people know, this isn’t the Oscar Britton Series, but the Shadow Ops series – if I remember correctly, each novel will add POVs, but Oscar will be kicking around).

Here’s the synopsis:

The Great Reawakening did not come quietly. Across the country and in every nation, people began to develop terrifying powers – summoning storms, raising the dead, and setting everything they touch ablaze. Overnight the rules changed... but not for everyone.

Colonel Alan Bookbinder is an army bureaucrat whose worst war wound is a paper-cut. But after he develops magical powers, he is torn from everything he knows and thrown onto the front-lines.

Drafted into the Supernatural Operations Corps in a new and dangerous world, Bookbinder finds himself in command of Forward Operating Base Frontier – cut off, surrounded by monsters, and on the brink of being overrun.

Now, he must find the will to lead the people of FOB Frontier out of hell, even if the one hope of salvation lies in teaming up with the man whose own magical powers put the base in such grave danger in the first place – Oscar Britton, public enemy number one...

Fortress Frontier will be published in the US in January 2013.

In related news, the first in the series, Control Point, will be published in the UK this week (Headline). I really enjoyed the novel, and you can check out my review here. There’s also an interview with and guest post by Myke Cole up on the site. And, because it’s fantastic, here’s the UK cover for Control Point once again:

“King of Thorns” by Mark Lawrence (Ace Books / Voyager)

Jorg’s quest for power continues

The Broken Empire burns with the fires of a hundred battles as lords and petty kings battle for the all-throne. The long road to avenge the slaughter of his mother and brother has shown Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath the hidden hands behind this endless war. He saw the game and vowed to sweep the board. First though he must gather his own pieces, learn the rules of play, and discover how to break them.

A six nation army, twenty thousand strong, marches toward Jorg’s gates, led by a champion beloved of the people. Every decent man prays this shining hero will unite the empire and heal its wounds. Every omen says he will. Every good king knows to bend the knee in the face of overwhelming odds, if only to save their people and their lands. But King Jorg is not a good king.

Faced by an enemy many times his strength Jorg knows that he cannot win a fair fight. But playing fair was never part of Jorg’s game plan.

This is a tricky novel to review. I really want to steer clear of spoilers (some are unavoidable, though), so I’m going to keep this relatively short. I’ve been looking forward to King of Thorns ever since I finished Prince of Thorns. It’s an ambitious novel, one that works very well, despite a couple of concerns I had about the beginning. If you enjoyed Prince of Thorns, then you should enjoy this, but expect a story of considerably greater scope and complexity.

[Warning: there are some minor, unavoidable spoilers for Prince of Thorns in this review.]

“King Of Thorns” by Mark Lawrence (Ace Books / Voyager) - The MLA* Review

The sequel to one of 2011’s most-talked-about fantasy novels

I thoroughly enjoyed Prince of Thorns, and I would certainly hold it up as one of the best debut novels I’ve read in the last five years – not only was the story gripping, but Lawrence’s prose were some of the best I’ve read (this is a huge factor for me, when deciding on how much I love a book). So, I’ve been impatiently awaiting its sequel. Which I have now read! As a preview for the full, proper review, I thought I’d offer a brief MLA review, first. Because they’re fun. And slightly silly.

* MLA = “Mark Lawrence Approach” – Mark suggested something unorthodox for my review of John Scalzi’s Redshirts, and because the resultant review was quite popular, and because many of you asked for more reviews like it, here we go with King of Thorns…

“Capital Crimes” by Stuart Woods (Signet/Penguin)

A ideologically-motivated serial killer in DC?

When a prominent conservative politician is killed inside his lakeside cabin, authorities have no suspect in sight. And two more seemingly different deaths might be linked to the same murderer. From a quiet D.C. suburb to the corridors of power to a deserted island hideaway in Maine, Will, his CIA director wife, Kate, and the FBI will track their man, set a trap-and await the most dangerous kind of quarry, a killer with a cause to die for...

This is the second novel in Stuart Woods’s Will Lee series that I’ve read, and I blitzed through it quicker than my first, The Run. It’s tightly plotted, engaging and extremely fast-paced. Despite not focusing on politics quite as much as I would have liked, this novel is very enjoyable, and I was hooked from the very beginning.

“Broken Blade” by Kelly McCullough (Ace)

A good, if flawed start to a new series

Once a fabled Blade of Namara, Aral Kingslayer fought for justice and his goddess alongside his familiar, a living shadow called Triss. Now with their goddess murdered and her temple destroyed, they are among the last of their kind. Surviving on the fringes of society, Aral becomes a drunken, broken, and wanted man, working whatever shadowy deal comes his way. Until a mysterious woman hires him to deliver a secret message-one that can either redeem him or doom him.

I’d been looking forward to reading Broken Blade for a while, ever since I stumbled across it through Twitter. It falls squarely within the new wave of assassin- and thief-related fantasy, which I’ve been rather enjoying, but at the same time offers some interesting twists on what have become the tropes in that sub-genre. The novel is a good beginning to a new series, with plenty going for it, but it nevertheless did not meet all my expectations. It is, however, probably perfect for fans of Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos series.

An Interview with LINDA POITEVIN

Canadian author Linda Poitevin has only recently come onto my radar, but after looking some more at her work, I think she has something new and interesting to offer Urban Fantasy readers. Self-described as a “wife, mother, friend, gardener, coffee snob, freelance writer, and zookeeper of too many pets”, I was most interested in the writing aspect (although, I could get on board with the “coffee snob”, too), and so got in touch with Linda and asked her some questions about her work.

“Control Point” by Myke Cole (AceRoc)

Guns ‘n’ Sorcery is born…

Army Officer. Fugi­tive. Sorcerer.

Across the country and in every nation, people are waking up with mag­ical tal­ents. Untrained and pan­icked, they summon storms, raise the dead, and set every­thing they touch ablaze.

Army officer Oscar Britton sees the worst of it. A lieu­tenant attached to the military’s Super­nat­ural Oper­a­tions Corps, his mis­sion is to bring order to a world gone mad. Then he abruptly man­i­fests a rare and pro­hib­ited mag­ical power, trans­forming him overnight from gov­ern­ment agent to public enemy number one.

The SOC knows how to handle this kind of sit­u­a­tion: hunt him down – and take him out. Driven into an underground shadow world, Britton is about to learn that magic has changed all the rules he’s ever known, and that his life isn’t the only thing he’s fighting for.

There are occasions when you hear of a novel long before you get the chance to read it. Based on interviews with the author, endorsements from other authors, any synopsis you might read, your expectation builds. Then, when you finally have the book in your hands, you start reading it and it just blows your expectations out of the water. Those are rare books that come along maybe once or twice a year, if you’re lucky, and rarely from debut authors. Whatever the cause, the book will just work for you on every level – plot, pacing, prose, and characters. For me, Control Point is one of those books. It sees the beginning of something new and awesome: guns ‘n’ sorcery. Blending military fiction with Urban Fantasy, this novel was an absolute blast to read – action-packed, tightly written and plotted, intense and utterly gripping. I loved this.