So my 'brief' hiatus wasn't quite as brief as I would have liked but sometimes in life you have to ignore what you love so you can do what you must! (life lessons from Emily part 1) I won't bore you with why I've been away but in case you missed it (and don't have me on twitter) then I will leave the link to my post explaining the situ -here-
ANYWAY. Onto the exciting news!
I was contacted yesterday by the lovely people over at Hodder and Stoughton about a brand new book coming out in September.... Laini Taylor's new fantasy Strange The Dreamer.
"the aftermath of a war between gods and mena mysterious city stripped of its namea mythic hero with blood on his handsa young librarian with a singular dreama girl every bit as perilous as she is imperilledalchemy and blood candy, nightmares and godspawn, moths and monsters, friendship and treachery, love and carnage."
You may already know Laini from her hugely successful Bestselling Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy but if not then you are in for a treat. I have been lucky enough to reveal to you some brand new information (literally released yesterday at 3pm!) so you can read some of her writing for yourself and marvel at the stunning beauty that is her covers.
The blue cover with the yellow upside down moth is the UK cover, whilst the yellow and blue cover with the smaller moths is the US cover. Personally I think both are absolutely stunning! These are potentially two of the nicest book covers I have seen in a long time and without any more information would be a cover buy for me straight away.
But. There is more. Much more. Because what makes this so exciting to share is the newly released PROLOGUE. Yes! I'm so excited to share this with you all and it sounds absolutely amazing. So without further ado, onto Laini's beautiful prologue...
"On the second sabbat of Twelfthmoon, in the city of Weep, a girl fell from the sky
Her skin was blue, her blood was red.
She broke over an iron gate, crimping it on impact, and there she hung,
impossibly arched, graceful as a temple dancer swooning on a lover’s arm. One slick
finial anchored her in place. Its point, protruding from her sternum, glittered like a
brooch. She fluttered briefly as her ghost shook loose, and then her hands relaxed,
shedding fistfuls of freshly picked torch ginger buds.
Later, they would say these had been hummingbird hearts and not blossoms at all.
They would say she hadn’t shed blood but wept it. That she was lewd, tonguing
her teeth at them, upside down and dying, that she vomited a serpent that turned to smoke
when it hit the ground. They would say a flock of moths had come, frantic, and tried to
lift her away.
That was true. Only that.
They hadn’t a prayer, though. The moths were no bigger than the startled mouths
of children, and even dozens together could only pluck at the strands of her darkening
hair until their wings sagged, sodden with her blood. They were purled away with the
blossoms as a grit-choked gust came blasting down the street. The earth heaved
underfoot. The sky spun on its axis. A queer brilliance lanced through billowing smoke,
and the people of Weep had to squint against it. Blowing grit and hot light and the stink
of saltpeter. There had been an explosion. They might have died, all and easily, but only
this girl had, shaken from some pocket of the sky.
Her feet were bare, her mouth stained damson. Her pockets were all full of plums.
She was young and lovely and surprised and dead.
She was also blue.
Blue as opals, pale blue. Blue as cornflowers, or dragonfly wings, or a spring—
not summer—sky.
Someone screamed. The scream drew others. The others screamed, too, not
because a girl was dead, but because the girl was blue, and this meant something in the
city of Weep. Even after the sky stopped reeling, and the earth settled, and the last fume
spluttered from the blast site and dispersed, the screams went on, feeding themselves
from voice to voice, a virus of the air.
The blue girl’s ghost gathered itself and perched, bereft, upon the spearpoint-tip
of the projecting finial, just an inch above her own still chest. Gasping in shock, she tilted
back her invisible head and gazed, mournfully, up.
The screams went on and on.
And across the city, atop a monolithic wedge of seamless, mirror-smooth metal, a
statue stirred, as though awakened by the tumult, and slowly lifted its great horned head."
Stunning. I am honestly SO excited to get my hands on this book! It sounds absolutely mesmerizing and I think the story will be very unique from the gist of the prologue.
Thankfully we don't have too long to wait as Strange The Dreamer is out September 2016! But if you really can't wait and need to get your hands on some of Laini's captivating writing sooner then go find yourself Daughter of Smoke and Bone, you will not be left disappointed!
I will certainly be keeping my eyes peeled for this gem when September comes around!
What are your thoughts on the prologue and book covers?
(©Laini Taylor, STRANGE THE DREAMER, out September 2016 by Hodder & Stoughton)
*This post was not sponsored. I just love books.*
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