“Thornspell” is Out In Paperback Today!
The paperback edition of Thornspell is finally out in New Zealand today—up until now, it’s only been available in the hardback edition. I really like the hardback edition, it’s a wonderful book, but since the NZ book market is almost exclusively paperback, I think it will be helpful to have Thornspell available in that format. And as I mentioned a few weeks back, the paperback edition has kept the wonderful cover art by Antonio Xavier Caparo, but also includes excerpts from some of the very good professional reviews Thornspell received in the United States. All in all, it’s a very nice book—and the one typo that a reader picked up for me in the hardcover edition has now been corrected.
Thornspell has its own website here, where you can read excerpts from the book. Chapter 1 is there in PDF format, but if you click on all the individual images from the cover (did I say “wonderful” and “Antonio Xavier Caparo?” OK, moving on then …) you should get a relevant quote from the book.
I’d love to know which quote or image is your favourite, if you’d like to leave a comment here.
(The Thornspell website also has a lot more reviews, some from online blog reviewers if you want to check them out.)
But in brief, Thornspell is a retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the prince destined to break the spell of the 100-year sleep—if he lives to do so and can learn to find his way through the layers of magic that surround the sleeping castle. And in order to do that he’s going to have to take on the powerful faie who cast the original death spell and is not only still around, but waiting to have another go … Thornspell has been described as “swashbuckling” and “romantic”,”mysterious”, “adventurous” and “magical”—but why not find out for yourself?
To celebrate the paperback release and also my debut post on the Supernatural Underground blog, I will be giving away a signed copy of the new paperback edition to two readers (again with names to be drawn from the “sorting hat”) who post a comment here before midnight, July 2, New Zealand time.
Thornspell sounds like a fabulous story and I’m hoping I get a chance to read it. I loved the illustrations, but the dragon is my favorite.
Barbara, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you for the draw. And of course, I think it is a fabulous story but I am somewhat biased! 🙂 And although I love all my characters, the dragon
is rather cool …
OK, chapter one is on my desk now so at least I will read that. Perhaps my friend Harry will pull a trick with the Sorting Hat and your giveaway will head my way. Alhana will like the thrush picture; we think she was on the bird committee when they created the world; Earth that is!
Good luck with the paperback issue, its always frustrating how long the paperbacks take to get out to us readers, first hardback, then trade paper, then …
Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—the sorting hat is definitely a free and independent kind of traveler and neither Harry nor I have any influence over its ways. But just for a little spoiler, the thrush only appears once in the entire book, so I love that it made it onto the cover, but for bird lovers like Alhana, sparrows do feature a little more prominently in the story . . .
The little bird is my favorite, it reminds me of Auld Hazel, and she’s my favorite character. Yes, I know, odd choice of favorite character 🙂
Wen, I don’t think it’s odd at all because I like to think that Auld Hazel is a really engaging character; I know that my Knopf editor, Nancy says that it was the prince’s first meeting with Auld Hazel that really caught her interest and drew her into the book. I’m just really glad that what followed held her interest as well!
She is exactly that sort of character, the sort that lets you know there is mystery afoot! I think that’s one of the reasons I like her so much 🙂
Thanks, Wen. 🙂