Not Enough Bookshelves: July 2010

I LOVE this. It’s gorgeous and so perfect for the book!

Anyway I finally jumped back on the internet last night and there is SO much great stuff out there I thought I’d share. Also it’s easier than writing a book review for Plain Kate. About which I have much to say (all good) but can’t dredge up the words right now.

A great post on Being a Banshee (or finding your voice) by Leila Austen at YA Highway

 C. J Omololu has a post on just that topic Are YA boys bad for Real Teen Girls? which makes for interesting reading, especially seeing I’ve been told my boys are too nice.

Diana Peterfreund has an excellent post on querying Don’t Take Yourself Out of the Game. I didn’t actually have this issue but I did stall for about two months before querying. It’s scary stuff putting little pieces of yourself out there to get rejected but you know, hopefully worth it. Jennifer Hubbard actually had a very interesting post on rejection and how we handle it and think we should handle it.

Two links from Maggie Stiefvater. An interview with the cover designer of Shiver and Linger I love cover stories and a song to celebrate Linger debuting at No. 1 on the NYT bestseller list. YAY! I loved Linger, it totally deserves to be up there.

Finally,  Joelle Anthony is having an Indie Bookstore Week. Tell her about your favourite indie bookstore to win some great prizes. I adore my local indie the fabulous Politics and Prose. The baby and I have been hanging out there to escape the heat.

In Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other.  Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack.  And Isabelle, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.

At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love — the light and the dark, the warm and the cold — in a way you will never forget.

I was apprehensive when I started Linger, unsure about where the story would go. Shiver seemed to have the perfect ending. This is a fabulous continuation of Grace and Sam’s story though, and it  was so lovely to be back with them. Plus there are two new intriguing and captivating narrators. The fabulously sarcastic Isabel and damaged but delicious Cole St Claire, who happily likes to be naked a lot. I am looking forward to the movie version of Linger!

With this book Maggie Stiefvater has become one of my favorite writers. Not only are her stories gorgeous, her characters have a depth that makes them feel so real. The four way narration, which could have been confusing worked so well, I always knew who was talking.

And her writing, oh I love and envy her writing. It’s beautifully descriptive without being overdone. From the moment I opened the book, the green words (yes the ink is green, so pretty), unwrapped around me and took me to Mercy Falls. Sitting in the sweltering DC heat Maggie Stiefvater gorgeously evocative writing made me feel cold.

These books stand out in my head, as much as their gorgeous covers do on my bookcase. It’s not just the characters, although I love them. It’s not just the setting, although it makes me want to go there. It’s not just the plot, although I’m loving the new insights in to how and why the wolves shift. It’s all these things and something more, an atmosphere, a way they make me feel when I read them. For want of a better word, it’s magic, the kind that the best books have. Now if only I could capture some . . .

   . . .anyway if you haven’t go buy Shiver and Linger they are definitely must reads.

1) The baby can walk! On his own! He staggers, waving both hands in the air, giggling madly, till he can find something to collapse into. I guess I shall have to start calling him the toddler now.

2) We’re going to the beach, yay! To a place called Nag’s Head. So I am expecting horses and to see Del Boy and Rodney.

3) Naomi at Inkcrush is having a Crushing on Jaclyn Moriarty Giveaway. I had never heard of Jaclyn Moriarty (not sure how I’d missed her) if you haven’t either you should read Naomi’s review of The Ghosts of Ashbury High and you’ll want to enter.

4) Once you’ve entered you should also check out Jaclyn’s blog, I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes. I clicked through from Naomi’s post and half an hour later I was still reading. Definitely one of my new favourite reads.

5) Pre-order Plain Kate by Erin Bow. It is gorgeous and magical. Review coming soon.

Too hot for anyone, let alone a Brit. Rain I can cope with. Weeks and weeks of gray sky? Bring it on, my spirits shall remain high. Even the snow wasn’t too bad. But 100 degree temperature AND humdity? Forget it.

Of course my WIP is set during winter time.

I am sitting here watching the temperature rise and rise, writing about snow. My characters are constantly struggling into and out of hats, and boots, and thick wool coats. They wrap long brightly knit scarves around their necks. They walk briskly from place to place, hands shoved deep in their pockets, unless they rest in someone elses. In which case they lament the fact they’re wearing gloves. The sky is that amazing true blue, not the washed out almost white, I can see from my window. There is the scent of cinnamon and spice and fur cones in the air and night never seems far away.

EMMA is set during the last. hot, sticky days of a Maryland summer. I wrote it during snowmeggedon. which which seems typical. I may have to go back and see if I remembered this heat right.

Hope you’re cool wherever you are.

I am such a sucker for a challenge and I nearly always fail BUT the Summer “Beach Reads’ Challenge, Tadpole level (meaning read four summer beach read books, should be doable)

The books I plan to take to the beach are