This Supernatural Summer is slowly winding to a close but its spell lingers still. One season’s magick spiralling out, transforming, changing into another’s. Titania the Summer Queen and Mabh, Queen of Autumn stand on either side of a meadow, walk toward each other, exchange greetings. Lyrical pleasantries from Titania ring like birdsong, while Mabh’s subtle barbs dust a chill in the air. Lightning flashes, flowers ripen to fruit, and the season begins to change.
You, a mortal, can sense it—this Faerie negotiation: warm days slip into cool evening; the scent of barbeque in the afternoon turn to the tang of wood smoke at night; bright skies yield to crisp breezes. Floaty summer dresses slowly give way to the comforting wrap of a favourite sweater. Green shades toward gold. Sparkle turns to glimmer. A different kind of magick stirs, wakens…
But not yet! The walls between the worlds haven’t parted like veils—not quite yet—but they’re thinning. In places… in parks, on a beach, or in the woods… you might still catch glimpses of Summer Fae dancing their last few dances of the season. But at dusk, they’re starting to vanish—leaving the forests to the hunters and their hounds.
Still…while it lasts, enjoy the last enchanted DARKLIGHT days of this Supernatural Summer; the in-between time where, by day, you can still read a good book on a beach… or, by night, curl up with it next to the hearth.
Yep, you read right! In Diana Peterfreund’s Rampant (now available in paperback!), killer unicorns with incredible strength and venomous horns emerge from extinction and begin a series of mysterious attacks. Astrid Llewelyn and her all-girl class of unicorn hunters attend a school in Rome that teaches them how to fight these My-Little-Ponies-Gone-Bad (and these girls seriously kick butt, think Buffy the Vampire Slayer here). But when Astrid starts falling for Giovanni, a handsome, kind art student, things get complicated. Can’t say too much more without giving it away . . . just ditch the sparkles and rainbows, and get started reading Rampant!
After reading Rampant, you’ll want to get your hands on the second book in the series, Ascendant. Get a sneak peek with this seriously cool book trailer before it hits stores in a few weeks!
I’m not sure it was supernatural, but it’s been pretty great. I started out doing final revisions on The Goblin War, which will come out next year, following The Goblin Gate. When I first wrote The Goblin Wood, over ten years ago now, I intended it as a stand-alone novel. But everyone who read it said, “You CAN’T end it there!” So I wrote a rough first draft of The Goblin Gate, mostly featuring Tobin’s brother cleaning up the huge and complex mess that Tobin and Makenna left behind. Tobin and Makenna were forced to run from the villain. Jeriah has to defeat him.
But then, I started thinking about the third book. Book three would have to solve the underlying problem facing this world—which is an invasion by an army of barbarian warriors, whose cannibalism-based magic makes them so strong that the Realm’s army cannot beat them. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wasn’t good enough to write that book. It would need three viewpoint characters, carrying out three separate, but intersecting, plot lines . . . and I wasn’t entirely sure how they could beat the barbarians, anyway!
If you’re like me you’ve seen a lot of vampires. You’ve seen ugly vampires like the ratlike bald guy in Nosferatu, handsome vampires like the boys in Vampire Diaries, shape-shifter vampires like the ones in Van Helsing, and even whiny vampires with no fangs like the guy in Martin. Heck, you’ve seen shimmery romantic vampires. You’ve seen evil vampires and good vampires, and lately a lot more good than evil. But you know what they all have? Every one of them, even the sweet ones, have the power of brute strength over humans. With few exceptions, vampires are faster and stronger than you or I, and they usually also have the capacity to hypnotize us (with hotness, of course) such that running and fighting wouldn’t help, anyway.
You know what? That’s not always the side I want to be on, and it’s why we launched the Alex Van Helsing series this summer.
Who’s Alex Van Helsing? He’s a 14-year-old who’s destined to be the greatest vampire hunter in history, but he’s not really clear on that yet. He doesn’t even know vampires exist. He thinks that’s just something people tease him about, with a name like that. He’s a quick-thinking, hard-riding freshman who’s spent his whole life being trained to fight and survive when the odds were against him, but he always thought those odds would come in the human variety. And in Alex Van Helsing: Vampire Rising, he learns differently when he stumbles upon an army of vampires out to take over the world. Luckily there’s a yin to that yang, in the form of a vast, high-tech spy organization called the Polidorium that takes Alex under its wing and sets him up with weapons and wheels.
Okay, this is my favorite tagline for Firelight, which some genius at HarperTeen came up with. I should really find out who since it’s brilliant, and the first time I heard it I got chills and thought, YES! That’s it! That’s my book. It alludes to . . . well, everything!
While there are several conflicts and themes going on in Firelight, it’s a star-crossed love story at its core. Of course there’s going to be a sizzling romance involved in anything I ever write. The first books I read were romances. I used to filch them from my mother’s nightstand when the summers stretched long and hot and I found myself with nothing to do. There is always such a universal message of hope in a romance novel. Love conquers all. No matter what happens to the hero and heroine (and seriously bad stuff happens!), they’re going to make it. Their love will not only survive but flourish. Who doesn’t feel a little encouraged and hopeful after reading a book like that?
When I decided to try to write a young adult novel, it took a while for the characters and plot to arrive fully in my head, but one thing I always knew was that there would be a compelling romance within the book. And nothing is more compelling, or at least conflict-ridden, than a story of forbidden love. Shakespeare knew that perhaps best of all.
The leads in Firelight are Jacinda and Will. Both are enemies, but in a big sink-your-teeth-into way that you could only find in a paranormal setting. Jacinda is a draki, a descendant of dragons. Basically, she’s what dragons have evolved into over the millennia. And even more unique than that, she’s a fire-breather . . . the very last one among her kind.
You know what else sucks? Having your ex-boyfriend (who you’re still in love with) as your new stepbrother.
You know what else? Having a crazy father who wants to take over the world—and you are the key to his success.
Planning prom on top of it all? SUCKS.
Teenage vampire AJ Ashe has all this and more on her plate in Melissa Francis’s snarky and suspenseful Love Sucks! Read a sneak peek here, and, if you’re feeling really sucky, try the first book in the series, Bite Me! Love and teenage vampirism may suck. . . but they’re totally fun to read about!
So, I’m getting into this whole book tour thing.
My publisher, Harper, decided to send me out on the road a couple of months back to visit schools and bookstores and talk about LIES. They pick the schedule because, let’s face it, they know if they left it up to me I’d end up taking a tour of beaches, posh hotels, molecular gastronomy restaurants, and casinos. Which really wouldn’t be helpful but would be lots of fun. Especially on an expense account.
They sent me to Orange and Huntington Beach, which are pretty easy drives from where I live in Irvine, California. And they sent me to San Francisco, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dayton, Austin, and Dallas.
They always offer to hook me up with limos and a handler—a person to show me around—but I’d always rather be on my own. I rent a car and find my own way. That way if I want to pull off and buy a cup of coffee it’s not a whole big group project.
The schools are always fun. I have a presentation that includes pictures and video and some music, so it doesn’t totally bore the audience to death. Then I answer questions while trying mightily to avoid saying one of the several words I shouldn’t be using in a school. One of the videos I include is a ten-second snippet of Lady Gaga. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find 10 seconds of a Gaga video that won’t bring parents and principals and preachers down on my head? Of course the irony is that it’s my 13 year-old son who helps me prepare the presentations, so he’s sitting there watching the videos with me and helping me decide what’s “suitable.”
Necromancer. It means you can make the dead come alive. And that’s just what Chloe Saunders does in Kelley Armstrong’s explosive THE DARKEST POWERS series, which includes The Summoning, The Awakening, and the newest, final installment The Reckoning. And then there’s Chloe’s friends, the witch, the sorcerer, the werewolf . . . well together, they’re a supernatural powerhouse.
Learn more about Chloe’s world or grab your cell phone and text NECROMANCER (now that you know what it means) to READIT for a sneak peek into Chloe’s reality.
And as if that wasn’t enough, bestselling author Kelley Armstrong has a brand new series: DARKNESS RISING. It’s set in the same world as DARKEST POWERS but has a new heroine, more supernatural powers, and much more romance. Excited yet? Check out an exclusive sneak peek from the first installment in the series, The Gathering.
To the people of Earth:
I am Pittacus Lore. I am from the Planet Lorien, three hundred million miles away. I am one of ten Elders who ruled our planet.
Earth is a planet similar to our planet, or at least was similar to it. I remember when we happened upon Earth by accident. One of our ships, which was on its way to another system, had a technological failure. It started drifting through space and ended up in your solar system, where we noticed Earth because of the deep beautiful blue of its water. We sent a ship to look at your planet, and discovered a healthy, beautiful, pristine environment, teeming with life. Remarkably, we saw you, human beings, who resembled us in many ways, living in tribes, in caves, on open plains, along the banks of rivers, and coasts of seas. We decided to help you.
We introduced language. We taught you the basic tenants of agriculture. We provided you with simple tools, and the skills of metallurgy. We taught you how to build boats, and to sail, and to use the stars to navigate your oceans. You spread among all of the continents of the world, and society developed. But until now, we kept our origins secret from you, and the only suggestion of our influence are the many mysteries in human history for which there are no apparent explanations: The lost City of Atlantis, the Loch Ness monster, Stonehenge, the Bermuda Triangle, and, of course, crop circles and UFOs.
This ain’t no Twilight . . . think Superbad. With vampires. Get a taste of Adam Rex’s hilarious hit Fat Vampire here.
Speaking of hilarious . . . check out two of the fattest videos out there:
-RE-VAMP (Want to stay eternally young, without the bite marks on your neck?)
-VAMPIRE HUNTERS (Normal teenager or vampire? Learn whether to give them some space . . . or bring out the stakes.)
And then become a fan of Guys vs. Vampires on Facebook, featuring Fat Vampire in a showdown with fellow funny book Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto—who’s got the edge, guys or vampires? You decide!
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