Holly Black Reveals First Chapter of Red Glove
As Holly Black enjoys a villa in Mexico for her writer’s retreat with fellow lady authors extraordinaire Cassandra Clare, Robin Wasserman, Maureen Johnson, and Sarah Rees Brennan, we all stare at her tweets full of envy while we pile on a couple more blankets and cling to our cups of steaming hot chocolate. (Or, in my case, spiked apple cider.) But today Ms. Black has give us a very, very nice gift. No, it is not a tropical warm front that will melt the snow and ice, but it is something that will make you all warm inside.
Earlier this morning, she posted the first chapter of Red Glove, the second book of the Curse Workers series, on her blog. (Click the link to go to the chapter. Since it is not mine, I do not want to repost it.)
Let the rejoicing begin!
Red Glove will be released April 5, 2011
Book Trailer I Love: Vixen
While watching Pretty Little Liars with my roommate the other night, we saw the book trailer for Jillian Larkin’s Vixen.
Up until then, I’d never really paid much attention to book trailers. I thought they were, well, a little silly. (I know, I know. Say it ain’t so! But it’s true, I did.) But this book trailer is gorgeous, well-lit, sexy, dramatic, and, though it mostly just teases you with promises of Chicago and 1920s and fishnets and guns and booze, it was all I needed to see to know that this is a book I want to read.
Check out the trailer below:
Tell me your thoughts on Vixen, and let me know which book trailers you love in comments!
Holly Black’s White Cat: It’ll Sneak Up on You
About a week ago, I found myself in a reading lurch–I was having a hard time finding books I could just get lost in. Reading had become a chore, and even though I actually enjoyed the books I was reading, they weren’t books I was excited to hunker down with and just read until there was no more to read.
After telling a friend of mine about my situation, she suggested that I read Holly Black’s White Cat. With no reason not to, I went to my local library and checked it out. Once I was home, I proceeded to sit on my couch and read the entire book cover to cover. Here’s why:
White Cat, about a seemingly normal boy with a not-so-normal name (Cassel) and a seedy family history, is a creative mixture of the fantasy, gangster, and con-artist genres. The story takes place in the United States, in a sort of alternate time (I equate with the “sideways world” in LOST) where everyone is required to wear gloves due to the presence of “curse workers”– a subset of preternaturally gifted people who can affect things from dreams to luck to emotions to appearance with just the slightest touch of their hand. Cassel comes from a family of curse workers, but unlike them, has never shown the signs of possessing an ability.
After Cassel wakes up standing on the roof of his boarding school’s dormitory, swearing that he was lead there by a white cat, he starts to second-guess everything he knows, and comes to find that his family knows more than they’ll say.
I found myself swept up by this story, but didn’t realize I was at the time. When I finished the last page, and closed the back cover, I sat there digesting what I had just read and realized that it was a work of brilliant storytelling. Ms. Black allows the reader to go on a well-paced journey with Cassel, and by the time you realize just how enamored you are with the book, it’s almost over. It’s sneaky that way.
Lucky for us, this sneaky book is part of a series!
Have you read White Cat? Tell me what you thought of it in comments!
The Secretly Awesome World of Audiobooks
When it comes to reading, I’ve tried almost every format with the exception of audiobooks. My hesitation about them was that I haven’t enjoyed having someone read me a book since I was probably eight-years-old, and I could only imagine an audiobook sounding like monotone high school classmates who had been called on to read aloud in class. That’s something I just don’t want to re-live. However, I think the time has come for me to give them a shot. But that decision has been a long time coming.
This all started back in October, when my devotion to Buffy the Vampire Slayer took me to James Marsters‘s panel at New York Comic-Con. While there, I learned that in addition to his television/film/theater career, Marsters also reads The Dresden Files audiobooks.
Now, I thought that if you were the “reader,” it meant that you read the parts that aren’t the characters speaking dialogue. Apparently, that’s not how it works–if you “read,” you play ALL the characters and adopt different voices for each. Which, when you think about it, is quite impressive.
Read more…
Check Out My Fancy New Writing Gig
Hey there!
I have an announcement.
*waits for your attention*
As of this morning, I’m the pop culture blogger for Celebrate Arkansas magazine in a column called The Culture Club. I’d love it if you’d check it out! And if you can think of famous pop culture sign offs (a la “XOXO, Gossip Girl” or “Your friendly neighborhood Spider-man.”) let me know in comments!
Bethany Larson 