strange and random happenstance: Ben Guterson

The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm by Christopher Paolini
Published by: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: January 1st, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 288 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The internationally bestselling fantasy sensation is back, with brand-new stories set in the world of Eragon and the Inheritance Cycle!

A wanderer and a cursed child. Spells and magic. And dragons, of course. Welcome back to the world of Alagaësia.

It's been a year since Eragon departed Alagaësia in search of the perfect home to train a new generation of Dragon Riders. Now he is struggling with an endless sea of tasks: constructing a vast dragonhold, wrangling with suppliers, guarding dragon eggs, and dealing with belligerent Urgals and haughty elves. Then a vision from the Eldunarí, unexpected visitors, and an exciting Urgal legend offer a much-needed distraction and a new perspective.

This volume features three original stories set in Alagaësia, interspersed with scenes from Eragon's own unfolding adventure. Included is an excerpt from the memoir of the unforgettable witch and fortune-teller Angela the herbalist...penned by Angela Paolini, the inspiration for the character, herself!

Relish the incomparable imagination of Christopher Paolini in this thrilling new collection of stories based in the world of the Inheritance Cycle. Includes four new pieces of original art by the author."

I've been wanting to re-read the Inheritance Cycle, perhaps this new book will be just the push I need!

The Secrets of Winterhouse by Ben Guterson
Published by: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: January 1st, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Bookish puzzles, phantom mysteries, and evil curses await as Elizabeth returns to Winterhouse in Book 2 of this magical series.

Back at the Winterhouse hotel for another holiday season, Elizabeth and Freddy dig deeper into the mystery surrounding Riley S. Granger, a hotel guest who left behind odd artifacts―one being a magical book that the evil Gracella Winters once attempted to use to gain destructive power over the entire Falls lineage. The two friends follow a trail of clues, inadvertently attracting the attention of a suspicious new hotel guest: Elana Vesper. The clock is ticking as Elizabeth and Freddy struggle to figure out whether Elana is merely a pawn or a player in the plot to revive the spirit of Gracella. If that wasn’t enough, Elizabeth suspects she is coming into her own special powers―and she’s fearful it might lead her right into Gracella’s vicious web. Mystery, adventure, and a winning friendship combine in this much anticipated sequel."

For my friend Marie who saw the first book at Barnes and noble the other day and was delighted by the cover.

Kingdom of Needle and Bone by Mira Grant
Published by: Subterranean
Publication Date: January 1st, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 128 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"We live in an age of wonders. Modern medicine has conquered or contained many of the diseases that used to carry children away before their time, reducing mortality and improving health. Vaccination and treatment are widely available, not held in reserve for the chosen few. There are still monsters left to fight, but the old ones, the simple ones, trouble us no more. Or so we thought. For with the reduction in danger comes the erosion of memory, as pandemics fade from memory into story into fairy tale. Those old diseases can't have been so bad, people say, or we wouldn't be here to talk about them. They don't matter. They're never coming back. How wrong we could be. It begins with a fever. By the time the spots appear, it's too late: Morris's disease is loose on the world, and the bodies of the dead begin to pile high in the streets. When its terrible side consequences for the survivors become clear, something must be done, or the dying will never stop. For Dr. Isabella Gauley, whose niece was the first confirmed victim, the route forward is neither clear nor strictly ethical, but it may be the only way to save a world already in crisis. It may be the only way to atone for her part in everything that s happened. She will never be forgiven, not by herself, and not by anyone else. But she can, perhaps, do the right thing. We live in an age of monsters."

It's hard enough keeping up with reading all of Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire's work, imagine being her?

In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin
Published by: Little, Brown and Company
Publication Date: January 1st, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Rebus' retirement is disrupted once again when skeletal remains are identified as a private investigator who went missing over a decade earlier. The remains, found in a rusted car in the East Lothian woods, not far from Edinburgh, quickly turn into a cold case murder investigation. Rebus' old friend, Siobhan Clarke is assigned to the case, but neither of them could have predicted what buried secrets the investigation will uncover.

Rebus remembers the original case - a shady land deal--all too well. After the investigation stalled, the family of the missing man complained that there was a police cover-up. As Clarke and her team investigate the cold case murder, she soon learns a different side of her mentor, a side he would prefer to keep in the past.

A gripping story of corruption and consequences, this new novel demonstrates that Rankin and Rebus are still at the top of their game."

Rebus! I love a good cop whose retirement just can't stick.

Book Love by Debbie Tung
Published by: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Publication Date: January 1st, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 144 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Bookworms rejoice! These charming comics capture exactly what it feels like to be head-over-heels for hardcovers. And paperbacks! And ebooks! And bookstores! And libraries!

Book Love is a gift book of comics tailor-made for tea-sipping, spine-sniffing, book-hoarding bibliophiles. Debbie Tung’s comics are humorous and instantly recognizable—making readers laugh while precisely conveying the thoughts and habits of book nerds. Book Love is the ideal gift to let a book lover know they’re understood and appreciated."

Books!!! Yes, that might be my doppelganger on the cover...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: Alagaseia, Ben Guterson, Book Love, Christopher Paolini, Debbie Tung, Ian Rankin, Kingdom of Needle and Bone, Mira Grant, Rebus, Seanan McGuire, The Fork the Witch and the Worm, The Secrets of Winterhouse

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Published by: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: January 2nd, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Of course I want to be like them. They're beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him--and face the consequences.

In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself."

Holly Black going back into the realm of fairy? Yes please!

The Outcasts of Time by Ian Mortimer
Published by: Pegasus Books
Publication Date: January 2nd, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From the author described by the London Times as "the most remarkable historian of our time” comes a stunning, high-concept time-travel adventure that is perfect for fans of S. J. Parris and Kate Mosse.

December 1348. What if you had just six days to save your soul?

With the country in the grip of the Black Death, brothers John and William fear that they will shortly die and suffer in the afterlife. But as the end draws near, they are given an unexpected choice: either to go home and spend their last six days in their familiar world, or to search for salvation across the forthcoming centuries – living each one of their remaining days ninety-nine years after the last.

John and William choose the future and find themselves in 1447, ignorant of almost everything going on around them. The year 1546 brings no more comfort, and 1645 challenges them in further unexpected ways. It is not just that technology is changing: things they have taken for granted all their lives prove to be short-lived.

As they find themselves in stranger and stranger times, the reader travels with them, seeing the world through their eyes as it shifts through disease, progress, enlightenment, and war. But their time is running out―can they do something to redeem themselves before the six days are up?"

Oh, time travel from the perspective of someone from 1348? Yes!

The Lost Season of Love and Snow by Jennifer Laam
Published by: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: January 2nd, 2018
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The unforgettable story of Alexander Pushkin’s beautiful wife, Natalya, a woman much admired at Court, and how she became reviled as the villain of St. Petersburg.

At the beguiling age of sixteen, Natalya Goncharova is stunningly beautiful and intellectually curious. At her first public ball during the Christmas of 1828, she attracts the romantic attention of Russia’s most lauded rebel poet: Alexander Pushkin. Finding herself deeply attracted to Alexander’s intensity and joie de vivre, Natalya is swept up in a courtship and then a marriage full of passion but also destructive jealousies. When vicious court gossip leads Alexander to defend his honor as well as Natalya’s in a duel, he tragically succumbs to his injuries. Natalya finds herself reviled for her perceived role in his death. In her striking new novel, The Lost Season of Love and Snow, Jennifer Laam helps bring Natalya’s side of the story to life with vivid imagination―the compelling tale of her inner struggle to create a fulfilling life despite the dangerous intrigues of a glamorous imperial Court and that of her greatest love."

Anyone else think that a cold January day is perfect from some Russian intrigue?

Death Makes a Prophet by John Bude
Published by: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: January 2nd, 2018
Format: Kindle, 288 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"'Small hostilities were growing; vague jealousies were gaining strength; and far off, wasn't there a nebulous hint of approaching tragedy in the air?'

Welworth Garden City in the 1940s is a forward-thinking town where free spirits find a home-vegetarians, socialists, and an array of exotic religious groups. Chief among these are the Children of Osiris, led by the eccentric High Prophet, Eustace K. Mildmann. The cult is a seething hotbed of petty resentment, jealousy and dark secrets - which eventually lead to murder. The stage is set for one of Inspector Meredith's most bizarre and exacting cases.

This witty crime novel by a writer on top form is a neglected classic of British crime fiction."

Nice wordplay in the title in this re-release of some classic British crime fiction!

Scones and Scoundrels by Molly MacRae
Published by: Pegasus Books
Publication Date: January 2nd, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 288 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The new mystery in the Highland Bookshop series, bringing together a body outside a pub, a visiting author determined to find the killer, and a murderously good batch of scones...

Inversgail, on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands, welcomes home native daughter and best-selling environmental writer Daphne Wood. Known as the icon of ecology, Daphne will spend three months as the author in residence for the Inversgail schools. Janet Marsh and her business partners at Yon Bonnie Books are looking forward to hosting a gala book signing for her. Daphne, who hasn’t set foot in Scotland in thirty years, is . . . eccentric. She lives in the Canadian wilderness, in a cabin she built herself, with only her dog for a companion, and her people skills have developed a few rough-hewn edges. She and the dog (which she insists on bringing with her) cause problems for the school, the library, and the bookshop even before they get to Inversgail. Then, on the misty night they arrive, a young man―an American who’d spent a night in the B&B above Yon Bonnie Books―is found dead outside a pub.

Daphne did her Inversgail homework and knows that Janet and her partners solved a previous murder. She tries to persuade them to join her in uncovering the killer and the truth. To prove she’s capable, she starts poking and prying. But investigating crimes can be murder, and Daphne ends up dead, poisoned by scones from the tearoom at Yon Bonnie Books. Now, to save the reputation of their business―not to mention the reputation of their scones―Janet and her partners must solve both murders. And Daphne’s dog might be able to help them, if only they can get it to stop howling..."

Scotland, books, and murder? Some of my favorite things!

The Pyramid of Mud by Andrea Camilleri
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: January 2nd, 2018
Format: Paperback, 272 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The latest in the New York Times bestselling series has Italy's favorite detective uncovering corruption and mafia ties in the world of construction and public spending.

On a gloomy morning in Vigàta, a call from Fazio rouses Inspector Montalbano from a nightmare. A man called Giugiù Nicotra has been found dead in the skeletal workings of a construction site, a place now entombed by a sea of mud from recent days of rain and floods. Shot in the back, he had fled into a water supply system tunnel. The investigation gets off to a slow start, but all the evidence points to the world of construction and public contracts, a world just as slimy and impenetrable as mud.

As he wades through a world in which construction firms and public officials thrive, Montalbano is obsessed by one thought: that by going to die in the tunnel, Nicotra had been trying to communicate something."

While I adore Penguin and all the covers for their Montalbano books, anyone else annoyed by the word placement of "of"?

For Audrey with love by Philip Hopman
Published by: NorthSouth Books
Publication Date: January 2nd, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 32 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"When two young rising stars—Hubert de Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn—cross paths for the first time—it's magic . . . literally, the perfect fit!

All the famous ladies want a Givenchy dress—actresses, opera singers, princesses and the wife of a president. When Audrey Hepburn has to figure what to wear for her next movie, she approaches Givenchy, but he's too busy to design something just for her. When encourages her to try on clothing from within his collection, they're both stunned by what they discover.

Philip Hopman brings us a stylish and compelling picture book about fashion and friendship that fits like a glove!"

Adorable!

Winterhouse by Ben Guterson
Published by: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: January 2nd, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"An enchanting urban fantasy middle-grade debut―the first book in a trilogy―set in a magical hotel full of secrets.

Orphan Elizabeth Somers’s malevolent aunt and uncle ship her off to the ominous Winterhouse Hotel, owned by the peculiar Norbridge Falls. Upon arrival, Elizabeth quickly discovers that Winterhouse has many charms―most notably its massive library. It’s not long before she locates a magical book of puzzles that will unlock a mystery involving Norbridge and his sinister family. But the deeper she delves into the hotel’s secrets, the more Elizabeth starts to realize that she is somehow connected to Winterhouse. As fate would have it, Elizabeth is the only person who can break the hotel’s curse and solve the mystery. But will it be at the cost of losing the people she has come to car for, and even Winterhouse itself?

Mystery, adventure, and beautiful writing combine in this exciting debut richly set in a hotel full of secrets."

Middle School me demands I buy this book. The cover, the concept, all of it, sold!