Cover Attraction: Perchance to Dream by Lisa Mantchev
(Not sure Marcia is still hosting this meme, but I had this post ready so I’m going ahead with it.)
Marcia at The Printed Page hosts Cover Attraction, a weekly occasion to post an eye-catching cover. The covers I post may be from books I own, something I’ve recently wishlisted, or just a cool cover I really think everybody should see. Sometimes I may have something to say about the artwork itself, but I’m not an art major or anything so please keep that in mind; I’m just trying my best to get the idea across.
Perchance to Dream by Lisa Mantchev.
From the critically acclaimed author of Eyes Like Stars
We are such stuff as dreams are made on.
Act Two, Scene One
Growing up in the enchanted Thèâtre Illuminata, Beatrice Shakespeare Smith learned everything about every play ever written. She knew the Players and their parts, but she didn’t know that she, too, had magic. Now, she is the Mistress of Revels, the Teller of Tales, and determined to follow her stars. She is ready for the outside world.
Enter BERTIE AND COMPANY
But the outside world soon proves more topsy-turvy than any stage production. Bertie can make things happen by writing them, but outside the protective walls of the Thèâtre, nothing goes as planned. And her magic cannot help her make a decision between—
Nate: Her suave and swashbuckling pirate, now in mortal peril.
Ariel: A brooding, yet seductive, air spirit whose true motives remain unclear.
When Nate is kidnapped and taken prisoner by the Sea Goddess, only Bertie can free him. She and her fairy sidekicks embark on a journey aboard the Thèâtre’s caravan, using Bertie’s word magic to guide them. Along the way, they collect a sneak-thief, who has in his possession something most valuable, and meet The Mysterious Stranger, Bertie’s father—and the creator of the scrimshaw medallion. Bertie’s dreams are haunted by Nate, whose love for Bertie is keeping him alive, but in the daytime, it’s Ariel who is tantalizingly close, and the one she is falling for. Who does Bertie love the most? And will her magic be powerful enough to save her once she enters the Sea Goddess’s lair?
Once again, LISA MANTCHEV has spun a tale like no other—full of romance, magic, adventure, and fairies, too—that readers won’t want to put down, even after the curtain has closed.
Though I usually find the faerie-land of Shakespeare and Spenser unappealing, many books are written in related settings, and sometimes I just find them impossible to resist. I put off reading Eyes Like Stars in spite of its beautiful cover, but I don’t think I can turn the series down anymore after seeing this one (besides, I keep hearing good things about Eyes Like Stars). You can see more of Jason Chan’s artwork at his blog.
Cover Attraction: The Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schlitz
(Cover Attraction doesn’t seem to be happening today, but since I already had my post written in advance, I thought I’d go ahead and publish it.)
Marcia at The Printed Page hosts Cover Attraction, a weekly occasion to post an eye-catching cover. The covers I post may be from books I own, something I’ve recently wishlisted, or just a cool cover I really think everybody should see. Sometimes I may have something to say about the artwork itself, but I’m not an art major or anything so please keep that in mind; I’m just trying my best to get the idea across.
The Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schlitz and Angela Barrett.
From 2008 Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz comes an exhilarating new adventure — and a thoroughly original fairy who is a true force of nature.
What would happen to a fairy if she lost her wings and could no longer fly? Flory, a young night fairy no taller than an acorn and still becoming accustomed to her wings — wings as beautiful as those of a luna moth — is about to find out. What she discovers is that the world is very big and very dangerous. But Flory is fierce and willing to do whatever it takes to survive. If that means telling others what to do — like Skuggle, a squirrel ruled by his stomach — so be it. Not every creature, however, is as willing
to bend to Flory’s demands. Newbery Medal winner Laura Amy Schlitz and world-renowned illustrator and miniaturist Angela Barrett venture into the realm of the illustrated classic — a classic entirely and exquisitely of their making, and a magnificent adventure.
I’m charmed by the tininess of the heroine, the richness of the night, the scale (the leaves and the hummingbird are both bigger than the protagonist). Just beautiful! I’d love to look inside this book and see the rest of the illustrations.
Cover Attraction: Where Everything Ends by Ray Bradbury
Marcia at The Printed Page hosts Cover Attraction, a weekly occasion to post an eye-catching cover. The covers I post may be from books I own, something I’ve recently wishlisted, or just a cool cover I really think everybody should see. Sometimes I may have something to say about the artwork itself, but I’m not an art major or anything so please keep that in mind; I’m just trying my best to get the idea across.
Where Everything Ends by Ray Bradbury.
In 1949, a struggling writer–a man very much like the young Ray Bradbury–boards a late night trolley in Venice, California and hears a disembodied voice murmur the words: ‘Death is a lonely business.’ Shortly afterward, that same young man discovers a body trapped in a cage beneath the waters of the local canal. Convinced of a connection between these events, the narrator/hero–together with a wonderfully characterized detective named Elmo Crumley (named in a nod to noted mystery novelist James Crumley) begins to investigate a series of suspicious deaths among the disenfranchised population of Venice.
Death is a Lonely Business was Ray Bradbury’s first book-length foray into classical detective fiction. Two others followed: A Graveyard for Lunatics, in which Crumley and our hero (now a gainfully employed scriptwriter) join forces with special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen, and Let’s All Kill Constance, a tale of mystery and suspense set against the faded backdrop of Hollywood’s Golden Age. All three, together with Where Everything Ends, the never-before-published title story that preceded and inspired them, are now gathered together in a single generous volume that should prove indispensable to Bradbury’s large and loyal readership.
Freely acknowledging the influence of the genre’s masters (Hammett, Chandler, MacDonald, and Cain), all of these stories successfully transcend those influences, filtering them through their author’s wholly unique sensibility. The result is a powerfully nostalgic evocation of time and place, and an unforgettable portrait of a writer in love with language, with movies, and with the transformative power of stories themselves.
Another wonderful cover from Subterranean Press. I’m completely fascinated by Jon Foster’s illustration, and the stories sound intriguing; I’m adding this to my wishlist.
Cover Attraction: Hespira by Matthew Hughes
Marcia at The Printed Page hosts Cover Attraction, a weekly occasion to post an eye-catching cover. The covers I post may be from books I own, something I’ve recently wishlisted, or just a cool cover I really think everybody should see. Sometimes I may have something to say about the artwork itself, but I’m not an art major or anything so please keep that in mind; I’m just trying my best to get the idea across.
Hespira: A Tale of Henghis Hapthorn by Matthew Hughes.
As magic begins to reassert its ancient dominion, Old Earth’s foremost freelance discriminator, Henghis Hapthorn, and his intuition (now a separate person named Osk Rievor), are living apart, though they remain on good terms. But now there comes between them a woman of alluring mystery. Who is Hespira? Does she truly want either of them? Or has she come to destroy them both?
I love Tom Kidd’s artwork. His delicate yet ornate work compells the viewer to explore the image, to look a little closer, and sets an otherworldly tone. His palette and his approach give a sense of fragility and organic structure that surprises considering the subject matter (wizards, spaceships, etc.) It’s appropriate that he does the covers for the Henghis Hapthorn books, since he also does all the covers for Jack Vance-related titles for Subterranean Press, and I hear that the Henghis Hapthorn setting is Dying Earth-inspired. So the art forges another connection between the two nicely.
Henghis Hapthorn the character is called “Holmesian” by Publishers Weekly, and I’m intrigued by the setting, so I may give the series a look, even though I tend to avoid what you might call fantasy detective fiction.
EDIT: The author informs me in a comment:
“I thought you might like to know: the cover of Hespira is actually the right hand third of one long oil painting, the other two thirds comprising the covers of the first two books in the series, Majestrum and The Spiral Labyrinth. The painting won Tom Kidd an award at the World Fantasy Convention in 2007, where I saw it. It was subsequently purchased by a fan of mine.”
The first three chapters are available to read for free on his website, so be sure to check them out.
Purchase Hespira.
Purchase Majestrum, the first Tale of Henghis Hapthorn.
Cover Attraction: The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Usually I don’t own the books I feature for Cover Attraction, but I’m so excited about this book I’m making an exception (and I may do so again in the future). This book was hard for me to get; after fighting gift-card wielding customers at Barnes & Noble, only to find it sold out not only at the store, but at the Barnes & Noble website, I had to get it on eBay. But I’m a fan, dang it, and this was the edition I wanted to read before reading The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Anyway . . .
Marcia at The Printed Page hosts Cover Attraction, a weekly occasion to post an eye-catching cover. Here is mine, The Complete Sherlock Holmes Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics Edition:
The Complete Sherlock Holmes Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Edition
This slightly fuzzy images shows the back, decorated with the plaque for 221b Baker Street, and other Sherlockian and Victorian objects, including a penny-farthing. The spine is decorated with the Hound of the Baskervilles.
The front and end-papers are decorated with tartan paper, and I fairly swooned when I saw it; it’s masculine and British and very appropriate. The page-edges are gilt and there’s a ribbon bookmark.
The book lacks illustrations and other distractions like spoilery annotations, so it’s perfect for my first read-through of the Sherlock Holmes series.
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