Sarah Rees Brennan's Blog, page 15

America Awaits. Also, A Raffle!

A quick update just to tell you guys about another US appearance I have in May.

As you know, I have the Diversity in YA stop in Boston on May 12th, but on the day after I've been lucky enough to be invited to appear in Chicago.














Friday, May 13 at 7 p.m
May 13th, 2011 – 7 PM
Anderson's Bookshop
123 W Jefferson Ave
Naperville, IL 60540

TEN YA authors talking fiction, answering your questions, turning bad luck into good luck… well, okay, we'll probably just be signing books. But we'd be lucky if you stopped by!

I have decided to do a thing for both appearances, to thank people for showing up: there's going to be a raffle in which I'll give away a set of all the appearing authors' books.

So, in Boston: Holly Black, Sarah Rees Brennan, Deva Fagan, Malinda Lo, Cindy Pon, and Francisco X. Stork's books.

And in Chicago: Lisa & Laura Roecker, Aimee Carter, Leah Clifford, Sara Bennett-Wealer, Courtney Allison Moulton, Saundra Mitchell, Christine Johnson & Julia Karr's books.

Come, bring your friends so I can give them all raffle tickets. ;)

Also, if you come to the event you can choose whether to ask me to read from Demon's Surrender or the shiny new title-may-change Listen for A Whisper.

This is rather starting to feel like a teeny tour for the paperback of Demon's Covenant, out May 4th. On the official release day, of course, you guys can rest assured you're getting a short story.

I Have A New Anthology Out, and Some Stuff To Say

I have word that the Truth & Dare anthology is out early in the US, so I wished to alert y'all to it! I have a story in it, and so do many other awesome and excellent people, to wit: Jennifer Finney Boylan, Sarah Rees Brennan, Cecil Castellucci, Emma Donoghue, Courtney Gillette, A. M. Homes, Heidi R. Kling, Jennifer Knight, Michael Lowenthal, Liz Miles (who also edited the collection), Saundra Mitchell, Luisa Plaja, Matthue Roth, Sherry Shahan, Gary Soto, Shelley Stoehr, Sara Wilkinson, Ellen Wittlinger, and Jill Wolfson.












The lovely Kirkus review: "Truth-telling can be dangerous, as anyone knows who's traveled the angst-filled terrain of adolescence. With remarkably few exceptions, the short stories in this collection exemplify the best of the form, drawing readers immediately into the lives of characters who confront the hard truths of alienation, love, trauma and sex. Some are humorous, like Sarah Rees Brennan's "The Young Stalker's Handbook," about two girls' comical encounter with a good-looking boy in a fast-food restaurant, and the editor's own contribution, "Scrambled Eggs," told entirely in Tweets. Others are unsettling, like Sherry Shahan's "Iris and Jim," a vividly weird story of love between two anorexics, or Matthue Roth's lush and startling "Girl Jesus on the Inbound Subway," about a Russian-American boy in Philadelphia who follows a girl from the train. Saundra Mitchell's "The Last Will and Testament of Evan Todd" is the powerful story of a boy reclaiming his life after an icy drowning. A girl auditioning for school play [sic] finds success where she least expects it in Heidi R. Kling's "Headgear Girl," while Emma Donoghue's "Team Men" gives the Biblical story of David and Jonathan a modern twist as two soccer players explore their homosexuality. Fans of Ellen Wittlinger and Gary Soto will be pleased to find them included in this edgy anthology for teens who dare to face the sometimes-ugly truths of life."

I know you guys enjoy playing 'compare and contrast different covers' (or is that just me...) so here are two more for you: The UK cover of Truth & Dare, out in a month, the one they almost had... and the real one.












The UK cover that got changed to...












Real UK cover.

Three pretty different looks, don't you think? (Note: I had no say in any of the covers - you don't with anthologies especially, because then a dozen writer types would have a say, but I like 'em.)

Writing this story was dear-God-difficult, I will add. It took me a month to first-draft, and I generally write much faster than that. 'How does anyone cope writing without magic?' I wondered, and my story is actually highly autobiographical (Yes, it all mostly really happened, yes, I am an idiot), and I think more like this blog than anything anyone's seen before...

I was especially excited to be in an anthology with Emma Donoghue, because, well, wow. She wrote Room, which is a very fancily awarded adult literary novel, and one my book club did a few months ago. (Yes, I totally told the book club I was in an anthology with her.) But one of the main reasons for my excitement was well, you see in the Kirkus review what her story's about. Saundra Mitchell's protagonist is gay, too, and all-in-all I was just happy when I heard about the contents, and not just because the writers were good.

There's been a lot of talk recently about what is and isn't allowed in young adult, and I kept hearing things like 'Well, but it's easy to be inclusive in YA, anyone who isn't is terrible' - and I wanted to say, well, it's not easy. You do take a hit for it. But it is always, personally, wonderful for me when people do write outside the world where it's the same old thing.

So I wrote a post, All Those Who Default From the Default Will Be Punished (But I Personally Think They Will Be Awesome) which you can find here at Gay YA or cross-posted below, in case anyone wants to talk to me here/yell at me here for getting something wrong, which I often do!


There mayyy be people who aren't white, straight and able-bodied around in this world. I believe they live on the Isles of Issuelandia, and they are very seldom allowed onto the mainland where the adventures are at.

This is a fantasy world we've all been shown a million times over in our lives, so many times it's had an effect on all of us, whether we know it or not. But most of us, if we stop and think about it, can put our experience of the real world up against the fake default-this-way world we get shown, and say 'Whoa, these pictures are kind of different!'

So on one level this is a crafting issue. The fake default world is a more boring one, offering creators less chance to be exciting and interesting. Loads of people like a romance with conflict, or confusion: in Perry Moore's Hero, the hero has a crush on a mysterious masked man, and the fact he's gay and doesn't know how to tell his macho superhero father is another layer of trouble for him and his already-troublous romance. Loads of books are about identity: in Holly Black's White Cat and Red Glove, Cassel Sharpe doesn't know if he's a good guy or a bad guy (he's inclined to think bad), he doesn't know what his real surname is because his whole family are lying alias-using magical conmen. And he looks like a PoC: people speak to him in different languages, confidently, on the street. But he'll never know about that, either: another layer for his fruitless noir-y search for identity.

On another level it's a moral issue. It's not just that it's more interesting: it's important not to exclude people, it's important to represent everyone. As a nerdy book-loving (though not quiet… nobody will ever tell you I'm quiet) girl, I was able to see people like me in books, even if there was nobody quite as nerdy and book-loving in my real life. (For all the nerdy book-loving girls out there: Diana Wynne Jones's House of Many Ways really rang my recognition bell. You're welcome.) That was good for me, in a way I didn't even recognise until years later. I don't think any writer wants a reader to read their book, and think: 'Well, I'm not there. Guess I'm on the Isle of Issuelandia. Oh man, not again. Kind of like always going to the Isle of Wight for your holidays. We never get to go out clubbing in Spain.' It is wrong to banish people from the mainland!

It's amazing to see people responding to the break with the default world. I remember having a room full of people tell me that Mercedes Lackey's Vanyel trilogy changed their lives. I've read people saying Holly Black's Tithe or Francesca Lia Block's Weetzie Bat changed the way they read, or wrote, or saw the world. I've had gay guys and girls at signings telling me, hey, awesomely done, you made us happy. (One gay couple who yelled out 'Go Team JAMIE!' during a discussion of teams, always makes me smile to remember.) My favourite fanletter, in all the world, was about me saying no to magically curing my disabled character Alan. And once off the Issuelandia Isles, readers who do conform to the default will see that characters who don't can be fun and lovable, and will love them and want to see more of them.

So, the books are better and readers will love them! Why not do it? you may cry. Well, the second bit is debatable: in fact you will get much more harshly critiqued for reasons I will discuss anon, and moreover: because you will pay for it.

Some libraries won't carry you. Some bookshops won't, either. You might get banned. None of this might happen, but parents might whisk the book out of teens' hands. I've had people tell me they wanted to buy my book, or order it at the library, and they couldn't because of their parents. Saddest for the teens who can't get to the books they want to read. But sad also for the writers whose sales, and thus whose chance to write the next book, suffers too. (That said. I loathe book piracy. I find it gross that people think it's okay to for them to benefit from someone else's work, who feel that person shouldn't benefit from their own work, as if it isn't work or isn't important. But if there is a teen who wants to read mine, and who can't get them because of their parents by any other means… Go ahead. Don't feel bad. Your need is greater than mine, and you have my blessing, and all my good wishes for the future.)

Recently there's been a big hue-and-cry over a YA anthology called the Wicked Pretty Things anthology, in which author Jessica Verday was asked to change her gay love story to a straight one. She said no, retracted the story, and said why on her blog. Many other authors took back their stories in protest, which made me very proud of my genre, and the anthology has been cancelled.

I will say this: the editor of the now-defunct Wicked Pretty Things anthology I know a little, and she's always been lovely to me. She edited a story I had with an intersex character in it, and let me keep hir. She also obviously in this case defaulted to the fake-default-world, and we'll never know why: maybe on her own, but very possibly because someone hinted to her, or flat-out told her, that she had to.

Which doesn't make the whole publishing house bad, either. (Gosh no. The same publishing house is coming out with an anthology called Truth & Dare, which I am in – but more importantly, which Saundra Mitchell's in with a gay main character, and Emma Donoghue with a gay romance.) It's just that publishing isn't a monolith. There are always going to be people who support breaking away from the default, and always going to be people who are against it, and you're always going to have to deal with the mix. Unfortunately, it does just take one person to create a problem you have to deal with. Jessica Verday had to take her fight out in public, in the same way Justine Larbalestier had to when the girl on the cover of her book was a different race to the heroine inside, but let me assure you: everyone who ever breaks away from the fake default world has had private fights.

Said little fight I had – I will note, not with my editor for the Demon's Lexicon books, who has always been solidly supportive. Another author, who wrote one gay romance which went fine, and sold well. And then in her sequel she had a steamier gay romance, and despite her awesome sales, the publisher flatly refused to publish it. The story ends well. She got another publisher. But it is not a pleasant thing to have happen to you! Another writer, who had her gay characters deleted from her screenplay. These problems always, always happen, at some point. It is exhausting to deal with them, and fight against the fake default.

I have one friend (and I swear, these are all authors I know, and true stories, and not secretly me – I'll tell you when it's me) who had gay characters in her book. Editor took them out. She put them back in. Editor took them out and took issue with her for her naughty ways. She swallowed hard, and put them back in. The book went out with them in.

Almost the first review we saw of the book online said 'Huh, not enough gay, what gay there was, was problematic…' And of course, that's what the person thought, so they were right to say it! But holy Methuselah on a bicycle, after all the author had been through to get it out there, it was hard to read.

Another author I know was slammed for showing a girl feeling shame after an assault. And of course, no girl has a reason to feel that – but some girls do, and they deserve books to say you do feel it, and yet you have nothing to be ashamed of. And yet, the critic has a perfect right to say she felt uncomfortable with it, too. I've been dinged (see, told you I'd tell you when it was me…) for having a gay character be too stereotypical because he once wears a purple 'LOCK UP YOUR SONS' t-shirt his sister gave him to annoy a homophobe. Made me sad, especially considering the fact I had a little fight on my hands getting to keep my gay kiss in the same book. But people have to be free to call out stereotypes as and when they see them!

People are always going to criticise stuff. People are critical beings! I myself constantly criticise books, movies, and the existence of bananas on this earth. And people notice books that stray from the fake default world more, and are more critical of them, because we are all so accustomed to the default that stuff that's not-default is very noticeable. Besides which, nothing should be exempt from criticism, and it is important to call out offensive things in fiction.

So this will always happen, until the world changes. If you write anything that's not the default, you will pay for it, because of publishers or readers or both.

I've seen the white-straight-able-bodied attitude be criticised, but I haven't seen specific books be criticised as examples of that attitude, for the simple reason it's much easier to criticise something that's present than to criticise the absence of something (since no book can contain everything). It's easier to be invisible to the audience – to go the white, straight, able-bodied route, with the focus on dudes and their dudely charms.

And some of those books are great. And I am a big fan of dudely charms, in general! But it has got to a stage where I will read a book that is otherwise good, and note it has the fake default, and I'll feel a lingering sense of disappointment. I'll never know if it was a consciously or unconsciously made safe choice – or just how the book turned out – or anything, really. No reader can know what the writer was thinking. All they have is the book, and their own conclusions.

Which is why I'll add that I don't like hearing 'oh, some of my characters are gay, but I just didn't mention it, it's not germane to the plot.' It's disingenuous to pretend that the fake default world doesn't exist, and that people won't assume. It's disingenuous to say it, if there are a bunch of heterosexual characters whose straightness was germane to the plot! I believe that it's said in all good faith, and of course it's nicer to hear than 'Gay people in MY world, certainly not' but hearing it (and I have heard it, oh gosh, at least twenty times from different writers) always saddens me. Put it in the book. All most readers will ever have is the book. The book is the important thing: the book could change a life, if you do it right.

And if you don't believe that, why be a writer at all?

I always think of something I heard Karen Healey (Guardian of the Dead, heroine's best friend is asexual) say at a panel once, talking about doing something that she knew would limit her audience and thus cost her money/potential future deals: 'But then I thought, well, the cost of that is a lot less than the cost of thinking less of myself as a human being!' (This is a paraphrase. Karen Healey probably said it a lot better!)

You will get pushback. And you won't get praised. But it's worth doing because it's worth being a better human being, and a better writer

And maybe, the world will change, and it won't be as hard for you, and–even better–it won't be as hard for other people. Maybe, just a little, you'll have helped.

Take a tiny hammer to the fake default world, and take the consequences of doing so. It's not easy, but it is worth it. For more on authors interested in doing so: www.diversityinya.com

The Promotion Notion: Winners & Awesomeness (i.e. everyone)

So the time has come to announce the winners and display the entries for the Promotion Notion.

sirael wrote and performed A Song For Nick. ('I'll be that flame for you, burn my life down to the ground.' Isn't her voice beautiful!)

altogetherisi gave two copies of Lexicon to a teacher and a teen, and promoted Surrender at bookshops.

hrh_taliesin made a gorgeous detailed talisman.

moraglee , in a supreme example of How My Fans Are Smarter And Awesomer than me, translated parts of Demon's Lexicon into Brāhmī, Aramaic, and Runic (Seriously. Really. I can't believe it either.)

Sabine drew a beauteous picture of Nick and Mae in a scene from Demon's Covenant (I always like to see those two crazy kids) Those two crazy kids. Doing a... crazy thing.

serena_mcmurray wrote fifty notes about Demon's Lexicon to tuck into books she loves and also made an awesome fanvid.

elvenjaneite made an illuminated and calligraphytastic manuscript

playwithfyr made three fantastic Demon's Lexicon desktop backgrounds

jaded_grave threw a Demon's Lexicon themed party which I badly want to go to. 'I'm Nick Ryves. I have no feelings.' 'I'm Mae Crawford. I have feelings all over the place.' 'Don't touch me... Let's make out.'

imagined_away made sure I reached dizzy heights of fame I have never thought to aspire to, in that she made a tumblr

orexisbella made a flyer to go with Book Club discussion points I wrote

elwenstarmaid made the US Surrender cover her default icon and shared the banner.

Mrs Z reviewed Demon's Lexicon here.

katelinnea made Demon's Lexicon her book of the month, with many posts here.

The YA Bibilophile tweeted, did a giveaway, put the banner up on her blog and made an awesome book trailer.

Ruby of Ruby Reads elected Nick her number one book boyfriend.

cyanide_sparkle put up the banner on her livejournal.

Sandy created this fantastically funny vid of Demon's Lexicon deleted scenes It is possible the Nick shower scenes are my favourite.

Julia created
GERALD

1. Pour 1 oz Irish whiskey and 1/2 oz Sailor Jerry (ha, ha, bad pun semi-intentional) Spiced Rum into a highball glass or tumbler.
2. Add ice.
3. Top up with ginger beer.
4. Garnish with a slice of lime & serve.

For Gerald, I wanted something that was normally pretty innocuous and unremarkable, like a whiskey and ginger, that packed an unexpected punch. I think I succeeded--the spiciness of the rum blends pretty well with the ginger.

LIANNON

1. Fill half a chilled shot glass with ice cold vodka.
2. Fill the remainder with crème de menthe, but leave some room to...
3. Add a splash of absinthe.
4. Down in one.

I figured the demons had to be shooters, because shooters fuck you up, and so do demons! Anzu and Liannon are sort of fire and ice themed, with Liannon being ice. This one is actually surprisingly refreshing, which was unintentional, but it is strong, which was the point. This also is where I started using running themes with particular types of liquor; starting here, absinthe=demons. Also, all ingredients should be cold, but as I learned while making this, don't try to put crème de menthe in the freezer as you would vodka--it will actually freeze.

ANZU

1. Fill half a shot glass with chili pepper vodka.
2. Fill the remainder with tequila, but leave some room to...
3. Add a splash of absinthe.
4. Down in one.

In case you're wondering, I made the chili vodka by poking a bunch of holes two jalapeño peppers with a fork, then letting them sit in a pint of Smirnoff for two days. I think they have commercial varieties as well, but why bother? This is cheaper. But don't forget to take the peppers out after two days, or I promise you the stuff will be undrinkable. And, as your burning throat will tell you, Anzu is fire.

NICK

1. Combine 1 oz gin, 1/2 oz absinthe, 1/2 oz lime juice, and 1/2 oz sugar syrup in a a mixing glass.
2. Shake ingredients thoroughly with ice in a cocktail shaker.
3. Strain, pour into a chilled cocktail glass, and serve.

Nick was hard--he is perhaps one of the few I'm not happy with, and were it not a little before noon here I'd probably try and fix it again. At any rate, he was based on the idea that he should have two strong, conflicting flavors that don't necessarily sit well together. I meant that to be the absinthe and gin, but the gin actually blends really well into the absinthe. However, the lime stands out, almost to the point of being too sharp, so I think I succeeded after all--everyone knows there's something off about Nick, and there's definitely something off about this drink.

JAMIE

1. Pour 1 oz gin, 1/2 oz peach schnapps, 1/2 oz sugar syrup, 1/2 oz lemon juice, and a dash of bitters into a tumbler or highball glass.
2. Add ice and top up with soda water.
3. Garnish with a twist of orange rind (squeeze it so it releases the oils into the drink) and serve.

Jamie was the first to take a lot of mistakes to get right, but I'm really happy with the result. Fruity, bubbly, light, but complex. And definitely delicious.

ALAN

1. Pour 1 oz bourbon, 3/4 oz Frangelico, 1/4 oz ginger syrup and a dash of bitters into a tumbler or rocks glass.
2. Add ice and a splash of soda water.
3. Garnish with a twist of orange rind and serve.

Oh, Alan. You turned out far differently from what I expected. The original idea was to make something comforting, but extremely and unexpectedly potent (because Alan is very soothing but a lying liar); I was thinking something like a hot toddy. But I was working on Jamie, had come to the conclusion that he needed soda water, which I didn't have, and I was frustrated and needed some whiskey. So Alan kind of turned into my tribute to the Old Fashioned, which is one of my favorite drinks. At first there was way too much bourbon, which I realized would be comforting to no one except me. So I changed the proportions a bit and added the soda the next night, and it turned out well, I think. Oh, and ginger syrup... um, boil some peeled ginger with sugar water, basically. I can find you a recipe if you want, I have a bunch of it as a by-product of making candied ginger.

MAE

1. Combine 1 1/2 oz white rum, 1/4 oz white crème de menthe, 1/4 oz peach schnapps, 3/4 oz grenadine, and 1/4 oz lime juice in a mixing glass.
2. Shake ingredients thoroughly with ice in a cocktail shaker.
3. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, garnish with a twist of lemon rind, and serve.

Mae's essential ingredient was grenadine, in order to obtain something like pink--so make sure all other ingredients are clear and especially don't use green crème de menthe. Aside from that, it's a strong drink that bears some kinship to Jamie's in that they both require peach schnapps.

SIN

1. Combine 1 1/2 oz spiced rum, 1/2 oz lemon juice, 1/2 oz grenadine, and three whole cloves in a mixing glass.
2. Shake ingredients thoroughly with ice in a cocktail shaker.
3. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, garnish with another clove and a twist of orange rind, and serve.

You have my partner to thank for this one. I had appointed him taster in chief for the evening, despite the fact that it was midnight and he was falling asleep and needed to be awake at 6 am, and he said "I think Fever Fruit should be Sailor Jerry, grenadine, and cloves." And I said "That sounds like Sin, not Fever Fruit," and so it was, with the addition of lemon juice. Bold and spicy. Grenadine was supposed to be the exclusive property of Mae, but it worked in this case. Again, not what I expected with Sin--I was planning on using Kahlua--but it definitely works.

In terms of promotion, I employed at least five people as tasters, and got at least one of them to put you next on her list of books to read. Also I probably mentioned the contest to anyone who asked me what I was doing lately, and recommended you to my aunt, whose 12 and 13-going-on-14 year old daughters are meant to be reading a certain number of books per month. And I want to have a party where I serve ALL OF THESE. But, best of all, I have provided you with new and fabulous ways to get drunk. I suppose this is not an efficient way to promote your books to teenagers--but then, maybe it is. Not that, as a bartender, I endorse underage drinking in any way, shape, or form. Um. No. Not at all.
Lea and Alev intrepidly promised their English teacher a date with me (I'd object, but I constantly try to get my brother to promote my books via a kissing booth in the bookshops) in order to get to do a presentation on the Demon's Lexicon.

They also braved many dangers to put up a Demon's Lexicon poster in their school.










ariss13 wrote a blog post entitled Alan Ryves, World Peace Ambassador

scrtkpr had Demon's Lexicon as her book for her book club.

Naseoul put up a banner, wrote a poem AND made a vid on the history of demons in Demon's Lexicon

Miss Regina Star wrote http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2437639/Miss_Regina_Star and wrote Take You Down- By Miss Regina Star (Alias)

There's been a lot of confusion, honey,

'Bout what you're doin' here, doll,

There's been a little misconception, sweetie,

Because baby you're going to fall~



Let's you down, to my level,

Let's take you down, on my turf,

Let's take you down, for good time's sake,

Let's take you down, for what it's worth.

LET'S.

TAKE.

YOU.

DOWN.



You're in with all the good guys,

I see that's the way it is,

Epitome of a leader, Please?

You're just doing this for kicks!



I see you walkin' down my pathway, honey,

With that demon by your side, doll,

Your hair's formin' a pink halo, sweetie,

But that won't save you from the fall~



Let's you down, to my level,

Let's take you down, on my turf,

Let's take you down, for good time's sake,

Let's take you down, for what it's worth.

LET'S.

TAKE.

YOU.

DOWN.



You're cute and you're feisty,

But that is really all you are,

You make a pretty good comet,

But remember, I'm the STAR!



You like the glimmering lights, honey,

The beautiful wonders amidst, doll,

You don't wanna be part of the background, sweetie,

But the higher you climb, the farther you fall.



Let's you down, to my level,

Let's take you down, on my turf,

Let's take you down, for good time's sake,

Let's take you down, for what it's worth.

LET'S.

TAKE.

YOU.

DOWN.



Let's you down, for good time's sake,

Let's take you down, for what it's worth,

Let's take you down, to my level,

Let's take you down,

On my,

Own,

Turf.
Priya made a
















Anne wrote and sung a song called The Market. (lamps like stars entangled in the trees/Fruit laid in gleaming rings on silver grass/While muffled drumming calls me to the dance)

So AS YOU CAN SEE, there were countless amazing and wonderful entries. I was at my absolute wits' end. 'It's a promotional contest,' people said to me wisely. 'So choose based on promotionalness... AND awesomeness.'

They also said, 'Your fans are so awesome. I wouldn't like to make that decision.' I laughed a hollow laugh!

So, the winner of The Demon's Surrender for promotion, awesomeness and showing others a good time... jaded_grave and the Demon's Lexicon themed party!

Other Prizes as detailed here

A special prize for moraglee 's amazing translation of parts of Demon's Lexicon into Brāhmī, Aramaic, and Runic - an advance copy of an anthology called Enthralled, of which more before it releases in September, but it has a new story about a possibly-familiar vampire boyband from me, and stories by many authors from the Smart Chicks tour.

For serena_mcmurray who made a vid and wrote FIFTY notes, a special prize of the Truth & Dare anthology, just out, about which I will make a post tomorrow!

The Visitor's Guide to Mystic Falls to imagined_away for her amazing tumblr

For elvenjaneite 's illuminated and calligraphytastic manuscript, The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy

For Julia and her Demon's Lexicon cocktails, The Girl Who Played With Fire

For Sandy and the Demon's Lexicon deleted scenes, The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy

Naseoul's banner, poem AND awesome vid gets The Girl Who Played With Fire

Lea and Alev, for their intrepid presentation on the Demon's Lexicon. and school poster, are awarded The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy

Winners, please contact me at sarahreesbrennan@gmail.com, and please feel free to say 'But I have read that story/haven't read Suzanne Collins/seen the Vampire Diaries/really want this other thing.'

And wow, I wish I had prizes for you all, because you deserve them. I hope you guys had half as much fun with this as I did!

All Manner of Badness

I'm awfully sorry this cookie is not on the ninth as usual! I was at the Romantic Times convention in LA, and our internet was very, very sketchy.

I have also received all the Promotion Notion entries and am dazzled and amazed! I have some agonisingly difficult decisions before me...

LA was lots of fun, from getting to meet lovely people at Book Soup (some of whom gave me brownies!), to Holly Black's Red Glove and Cassandra Clare's City of Fallen Angels fancy midnight opening at which I wore a shirt proclaiming my love for Holly Black's evil brothers, to all of my adventures at the convention. Doing impressions of various books, standing on chairs, stealing other authors' watches, you know how it is.

We had several wonderful panels at Romantic Times, one of which was on Bad Boys and their role in fiction, and we got to talking about Bad Girls and the way they usually came to bad ends, and one charming lady had read my books and asked if Sin was a Bad Girl. ;) And I had to say yes, I guessed she was. She and Nick, as seen in the cookie below, really do have a lot in common...

Hope you enjoy!

There was a roof garden on top of Nick and Alan's building. A roof garden where they grew cigarette butts and concrete.

Sin bounded up the couple of steps to where Nick stood outlined against the chilly steel-blue sky.

He'd pulled off his shirt and thrown it on the ground: Sin noticed the flex of muscles in his arms and chest as he feinted, lunged, and withdrew. They'd lost a good dancer there.

They'd lost a better one with her. Sin cast off her own shirt and began to warm up wearing jeans and her sports bra, doing some shoulder rolls and ankle circles, and then started on hip flexes. With her knee on the floor and her arms over her head, she pushed her hips forward and counted heartbeats.

When she switched to the other leg, Nick tapped her on the back of her knee with his sword. Sin glanced at the talisman, glinting and swinging from his bare chest, and up to the challenging curl of his mouth.

She grinned back and he swung, and Sin bent over backwards on her palms to avoid the blade. It cut through the air, the edge skimming an inch above the line of her hips. Sin rolled away as Nick's sword lifted, and then dodged as he swung. She went weaving around the silver blur of his blade, rolling over and under it, capturing it in the arch of her arms and leaping over the bright barrier.

"Stop dancing around," Nick said, baring his teeth at her.

She let her arms dip low, crossed at the wrist, as the blade flashed forward. She caught the blade just above the hilt, just before the point touched her stomach.

She grinned back at him. "I never do."

They disengaged and she spun away: he lifted the sword and she swung out from it, her fingertips on the blade as if it was her partner's hand. The cold air felt good against her hot skin now, and her muscles were all singing to her.

Nick advanced on her, bringing his sword up and around. Sin did a split and sprang back to her feet when the sword had already passed her. Sin retreated a step, and the inside of Nick's arm hit the small of her back.

He stopped and looked down at her, as if he had only just noticed she had turned his sword practice into their dance.

There was a flash above them, almost like a spotlight. Standing out against a pale empty sky, with not a cloud or a murmur of thunder, was a brilliant silent stitch of lightning.

They both stood staring at it for a moment, their faces lifted.

"Did my phone ring while you had it?" Nick asked.

Sin said: "Yes."

"I have to go," Nick told her. He disengaged and went for the steps down to his flat, sheathing his sword as he went.

He left Sin with his shirt at her feet and her head tipped back to stare at the sky.

Only a magician could send a sign like that.

She was still staring when Nick's phone went off in her back pocket.

Sin answered warily, waiting for magicians, and got a reminder that she had plenty of problems that were all her own.

The woman at the occult bookshop, the one with the worried voice who'd asked her if she was quite sure, had clients lined up for her already.

"You don't have to do this," she said.

Sin said, "I'm on my way."

She met Mae and Alan coming into the flat.

Mae frowned. "Is this no-shirts festival day?"

Promotion Prizes

So it is April, and a week until the Promotion Notion competition ends! I've already seen much gorgeousness, thank you so much to everyone who's participated so far - vids, a tumblr, a calligraphy project, art, book discussions and songs - to which I will be linking in a round-up and announcing the winners post (probably a few days after the April 7 deadline, as I will be in LA, and hoping to see some of you guys there). And I am very much looking forward to seeing more!

But I also thought that you guys should be made aware of the other prizes besides the advance copy of The Demon's Surrender.

So without further ado here they are, in no order because I feel the winners may want to pick/have already read one/et cetera.















A poet and a bear journey toward the ruins of a city in search of answers; a diminutive man seeks satisfaction within a secluded mountain cave; an elderly widow enjoys the company of a collection of robotic cowboys; the Boy Who Never Grew Up becomes an agent of Her Majesty's Secret Service; a werewolf girl joins the cast of a musical revue; a group of hardened mercenaries takes on a foolish job; a young man learns the ways of the world in the arms of a Sylvanian maiden; a teenage girl attempts to escape her domineering mother's influence aboard a cargo spaceship; an impossible flying machine departs on its maiden voyage...


"Elegy for a Young Elk" - Hannu Rajaniemi
"The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains" - Neil Gaiman
"Seven Sexy Cowboy Robots" - Sandra McDonald
"The Spy Who Never Grew Up" - Sarah Rees Brennan
"The Aarne-Thompson Classification Revue" - Holly Black
"Under the Moons of Venus" - Damien Broderick
"The Fool Jobs" - Joe Abercrombie
"Alone" - Robert Reed
"Names for Water" - Kij Johnson
"Fair Ladies" - Theodora Goss
"Plus or Minus" - James P. Kelly
"The Man With the Knives" - Ellen Kushner
"The Jammie Dodgers and the Adventure of the Leicester Square Screening" - Cory Doctorow
"The Maiden Flight of McAuley's Bellerophon" - Elizabeth Hand
"The Miracle Aquilina" - Margo Lanagan
"The Taste of Night" - Pat Cadigan
"The Exterminator's Want-Ad" - Bruce Sterling
"Map of Seventeen" - Christopher Barzak
"The Naturalist" - Maureen McHugh
"Sins of the Father" - Sara Genge
"The Sultan of the Clouds" - Geoffrey A. Landis
"Iteration" - John Kessel
"The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn" - Diana Peterfreund
"The Night Train" - Lavie Tidhar
"Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale)" - Ian Tregillis
"Amor Vincit Omnia" - K.J. Parker
"The Things" - Peter Watts
"The Zeppelin Conductors' Society Annual Gentlemen's Ball" - Genevieve Valentine

Would you look at that lineup. And me! I am so proud my Peter-Pan-playing-at-being-James-Bond story was chosen.

And then there is the question of essays. I like to write them in a way that used to make my professors weep. Casual like. Many jokes. Some sexy jokes. I find it all kinds of enjoyable that now I can witter on about books and TV shows in other books.















A collection of essays about Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games. In which I suggest the existence of a secret, naughty bits version of Mockingjay.

Introduction: The Girl Who Was on Fire - Leah Wilson
Why So Hungry for the Hunger Games? (Or, The Game of Making Readers Hungry For More, Why Readers' Imaginations Caught Fire, and My Sad Inability to Come Up With a Wordplay for Mockingjay) - Sarah Rees Brennan
Team Katniss - Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Your Heart Is a Weapon the Size of Your Fist - Mary Borsellino
Smoke and Mirrors - Elizabeth M. Rees
Someone to Watch Over Me - Lili Wilkinson
Reality Hunger - Ned Vizzini
Panem et Circenses - Carrie Ryan
Not So Weird Science - Cara Lockwood
Crime of Fashion - Terri Clark
Bent, Shattered, and Mended - Blythe Woolston
The Politics of Mockingjay - Sarah Darer Littman
The Inevitable Decline of Decadence - Adrienne Kress
Community in the Face of Tyranny - Bree Despain















* Introduction: A Visitor's Guide to Mystic Falls - Red and Vee
* Women Who Love Vampires Who Eat Women - Sarah Rees Brennan
* Bonnie Bennett: A New Kind of Best Friend - Bree Despain
* The War between the States - Claudia Gray
* Ladies of the Night, Unite! - Jon Skovron
* In Which Our Intrepid Heroines Discuss the Merits of the Bad Boy Versus the Reformed Bad Boy - Alyxandra Harvey
* You're My Obsession - Vera Nazarian
* Don't Be Fooled by that Noble Chin: Stefan Sucks - Kiersten White
* Case Notes: Salvatore, Stefan and Salvatore, Damon - Heidi R. Kling
* Damon Salvatore: Vampire Hunte - rMary Borsellino
* Sweet Caroline - Jennifer Lynn Barnes
* Dear Diary . . . - Karen Mahoney
* A Visitor's Guide to Fell's Church - Red and Vee


I know, I know. My essay titles. I once titled one of my essays with a Latin pun. They never let you out of nerdtown for that. In fact I believe I may have been made mayor for that.

Aaaaand, there is going to be a Demon's Lexicon Series poster! I am getting a real designer to do this, but I have used my elite art program skills to show you a ROUGHT DRAFT.


















Pretty all finished and all together, don't you think? *coughs* I know they do not exactly, uh, line up, but you get the idea.

I know you are all pretty impressed by those fancy art skills. I also made a collage for Listen for a Whisper. I am so cool. ;)

I will of course sign any and all of these fine prizes! And I hope you enjoy the Promotion Notion as much as I do.

The Big News!

For some time now I have been coyly mentioning the fact that I have two pieces of big news. I have also been coyly bashing my head against tables in the presence of concerned friends, muttering wildly, 'If only I could tell people. I want to TALK and TALK and TALK about it!'

And now I can finally announce one of the two pieces of news! I am almost unbearably excited.

I have a new book series!

Author of the Demon's Lexicon Series Sarah Rees Brennan's YA gothic romance trilogy beginning with LISTEN FOR A WHISPER, about a budding journalist who investigates when she realizes the town she has lived in all her life is hiding a multitude of secrets and a murderer, and the truth may lie with the ruling family who have just returned to the manor on the hill and in the whispers she hears in her head from a boy who may not be imaginary after all.

I so wanted to write this book, and I was so worried people wouldn't want it! For I do so many things in it that I love.

I get to be goofy, and I get unlikely partners fighting crime. I got to make up a beautiful country town in the Cotswolds, one of the prettiest parts of England, and use it as a setting for murder. I have your traditional Gothic heroine - you know, unexpectedly thrown into the gloomy manor with secrets caught in the cobwebs and insane family members swooping about - except he's this scruffy pool hustler from San Francisco. I have a lady sleuth and the answer to what the townsfolk are doing while mad stuff happens in the manor: they're sleuthing. I get to dissect the fact that being in someone else's head would be truly terrifying and deeply uncomfortable.

I have, in other words, too much fun.

And my editor is Mallory Loehr. She has read Diana Wynne Jones's books as many times as I have. She thinks there's no such thing as too dangerous an idea. She edited the new Bordertown anthology. She edits Tamora Pierce, and Tamora Pierce's In The Hand of the Goddess was the first fantasy novel I ever read. For some people it was The Lord of the Rings, but for me it was Tamora Pierce, and ever afterwards I expected all fantasy to be funny, feminist, and exciting.

See again: almost unbearably excited. It'll come out, we think, autumn (or... fall, as Americans call it) next year (2012). And I'm so happy. And I hope you guys will be happy and excited too.

Promotion, The Internet, Supernatural Goings-On In England & You

So let's talk about SOME THINGS I ENJOY. One answer to this is really obvious: I like supernatural teens, in a vaguely grubby British setting, overwhelmed by terrible problems. Often the problems are: their personalities.

Why the grubby British setting? I'm not really sure. There's a lot of history there, obviously, and I like the lack of high gloss and super-attractive people that American media has. This is not to say I don't like American books (too many examples to count) and American shows (my devotion to The Vampire Diaries is well documented).

Possibly it's just because Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising series and Diana Wynne Jones got me at a young age, and made me think That Is The Way Things Should Be. One of my favourite scenes from a fantasy book, ever, is when in Diana Wynne Jones's The Ogre Downstairs the main characters accidentally sow dragons' teeth in a parking lot (the myth: sowing dragons' teeth reaps you a harvest of warriors). Angry bikers spring up in the parking lot, and the main characters - a new stepfamily who aren't getting on any too well - have to make their escape by chucking groceries at them.

That is the kind of thing I call 'putting the magic out with the milk bottles' - mixing up magic with extremely basic real life in a way that makes the magic seem absolutely convincing. And I see it with this setting a lot. Which is why I like to use grubby British settings a lot myself. ;)

One example of this kind is a show I am mad about called Misfits, a series set in a fictional borough of London about young offenders sentenced to community service, who all get super powers. (One of them: That kind of thing only happens in America.) Their total lack of control of said powers mean they have to run around hiding dead bodies and getting into embarrassing situations all the livelong day. There's a lot of hilarious dialogue and people who can't deal with their feelings even slightly.

Another example, and the one which spurred this post, is a series called Becoming Human. It's a spinoff of another show called Being Human, but let us lay that aside, because the reason I like the series is in the title. It's why I write teen fiction - because the process of 'becoming' is so fraught and fascinating, because when you're still working out who you are you can do some terrible things and then come back from them. Or not.

Quick summary: a teenage vampire goes to school to try and live a normal life. What's that I hear you cry? Sounds, um, familiar? Sure, but I love vampires. And this is the way to get me to love vampires more: make them embarrass themselves. Adam the baby vampire is forty-six, which is just horrifying instead of being a glamorous century plus, and he constantly makes eighties pop-culture references that mystify his classmates. Additionally, he seems very young adult, as his parents who fed him their blood and moved around the country with him, keeping him in a cycle of eternal childhood and causing him to have literally lost the ability to shut up oh God Adam please shut up, have just died.

At his new school, chances of a normal life are immediately nixed by his meeting Christa, who recently had a mysterious bad break-up and changed her look abruptly from pigtails to black duster jackets, who is enormously grouchy, and who refuses to admit she's a werewolf. (How I like werewolves: anger issues and confusing transformations!) And Matt, a ghost who never felt he had much of a life, who wants revenge against his former bullies and revenge against his murderer, and who convinces them to help find out who said murderer actually was. Supernatural Brick style shenanigans ensue.

Another thing that I enjoy: strange partners who fight crime. I have high hopes that Christa, the smart one, could become a werewolf Veronica Mars with differently-living sidekicks. I also have high hopes that Christa and Adam will overcome the barriers of their species and personalities, and be together forever, but that is a side issue...

The way I like all supernatural issues: Use the supernatural thing as an analogy to real-life problems to some extent, and then use the myth for its own scary, interesting sake as well. Real life, but take it further.

And speaking of taking things further. Becoming Human is actually a web-series. And it has all these little online extras to go with it, like character profiles and an excerpt from Christa's diary.

All of which I totally read, and which got me thinking about the different ways online promotion works. Ideally it should enhance the experience of being a fan of something, and get you more excited about something. It should provide you with a little something extra.

Misfits has twitter accounts for several of the main characters, which I love because I love twitter, and the way it inspires mini-conversations. (Just last night on my twitter I was doing 'two characters stuck somewhere together' tweets. On a prompt of 'The one I REALLY want is Alan and Sin Start a Detective Agency' I had fun with: 'CLIENT: Help! ALAN: Trust me. SIN: Don't.')

I also love online short stories. Because I think fans deserve presents, and because they're what I was talking about earlier: something extra, and exciting. I have a ton of short stories up set in the universe of my books. Kelley Armstrong has a blog where she tells short stories from other characters' POVs and does giveaways.

Holly Black has taken this a step farther and done a series of vignettes from the point of view of the heroine of White Cat which are both awesome in themselves, and have extras from the world of the Curse Workers series, like TV ads and posters.

Basically Becoming Human got me thinking about online extras, what works, and what I like. And I was wondering, dear readers, what do you like? There's a lot of awesome stuff. Carrie Ryan's going to have a novella out for super cheap. Cassandra Clare has a tumblr for a new character in her series. Baen, to talk about a publishing house instead of writers or TV shows, gives away tons of free e-books.

Fans can make truly spectacular things. I am watching the entries come in for Promotion Notion ARC contest with great joy (round-up of entries so far to come soon) and I will never get over the amazingness of the Demon's Lexicon told through lego. I am not a quarter talented enough to do such things! But I did wonder about people's thoughts on creator-generated extra content.

So: what works for you, and what do you like to see? Anything special? Just hand over the TV shows and books and nobody will get hurt? I would like to know! And talk about it further.

I will also be talking about how I like my vampires, and about mixing up real life settings and magic, again. But you all knew that. ;)

The UK Cover of Demon's Surrender

It is no secret that I love my UK covers. With the third one, we went back and forth - there is a whole other cover you will never see - wanting it to look new, and exciting, and yet part of the set. And here is the cover of the Demon's Surrender in the UK, and I think it's my favourite of the three. I hope you like it too!
















In non-cover news, here are my activities for the first half of this year:

April 5, 7 PM

Book Soup, 8818 West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA. A gang of authors (Melissa Marr, Kelley Armstrong, Melissa de la Cruz, Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia, and me) chatting about their books, giveawaying, playing shocking literature games…

ROMANTIC TIMES CONVENTION
April 6-10

* April 9: Teen Day and Book Signing!
* 11am -2pm: BOOK FAIR ( Book Fair Only Tickets available at the door: $5 each) Meet the YA authors at the general Book Fair, and purchase autographed copies of their latest books.
* 11am – 7:30pm — COME FOR THE DAY! — $25 Day Pass (you can pre-register, or pay at the door)
* $25 for one Adult
* $25 for one Teen which includes one FREE entry for an accompanying adult

(Includes Book Fair, Saturday, Teen-Day Workshops and Teen Party. Swag bag full of books and giveaways FOR EVERY TEEN)
Come see me, Cassandra Clare, Holly Black, Melissa Marr, Jen Lynn Barnes and many more on the special YA track.(http://www.rtbookreviews.com/convention/panels#ya)

DIVERSITY IN YA TOUR

Thursday, May 12, 7 p.m.
Cambridge Public Library (Main Library)
Lecture Hall
449 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02138

Malinda Lo and Cindy Pon have set up a wonderful tour in which we discuss diversity in YA: in our books, across the board, where we want it and how important it is. Check out the website: http://www.diversityinya.com/

I don't know much about what will happen June onward, but if anyone's near the Charleston Book Festival in November, there is a very good chance of seeing me there...

And back to cover news: yay!

And Now For Our Most Pink-Haired Cookie

It's the ninth and we all know what that means: the arbitrarily chosen day of the month that I pass out cookies from The Demon's Surrender! This month of March is the month of Mae, as previous months have been the months of Jamie, Nick and Alan.

I hope you will enjoy. It was hard to find a snippet for Mae that was not full of devastating spoilers. She is a plotlicious lady.

She'd only glanced over, in time to see Alan reach up to fetch down a scroll for Mae on a high shelf, but when she looked back Nick was gone, silently as if direct light had hit a shadow.

She did a swift scan of the crowd, used to picking out one face in an audience, and of course saw Nick beside Alan and Mae. Mae scowled up at him and Nick leaned against the stall and in towards Mae, whispering something in her ear.

Mae's face turned thoughtful as he spoke. After a moment she nodded briefly, and slipped out from between the stall and Nick's body, setting off purposefully through the Market. Alan stayed behind, a book open in his hand.

He did not look after Mae and Nick, but everybody else did.

Everybody saw Nick at Mae's back like a shadow that could not be dispersed, a dark sentinel, like the bodyguard to a queen.

Everybody saw Mae moving through the Market. With every step she took the lights nearest her flared into brilliance, the difference as great as if stars were blooming into suns above her head. The light around her hair spread and shone, as if every moment a new golden crown was being placed on her head, a succession of hundreds and hundreds of crowns.

Sin had taken the night off from dancing to make herself seem like the leader of the Market.

The demon had thrown his support behind her rival, undone all her efforts, let Mae shine and let everyone know his power was at her command.

Sin had no idea how to match this.

*

The Market was winding down, Sin on the ground directing the people unwinding the wires that held up their lanterns and curtains from around the trees.

"Careful with that," she called up to one of her dancers. "Break a beacon lamp and we'll never hear the end of it. Coil up the wire: we've got to stow all this away."

She slid her hands to the base of her spine and arched, feeling her back pop and crack a little in a way that said she would be feeling all this tomorrow. She was only going to get a couple of hours' sleep and then it would be time to wake the kids and bring them to school.

"Hi," Mae's voice said behind her, and Sin straightened her shoulders despite her back hurting. "Haven't seen you around a lot tonight."

"Hope your fourth Market was a good one," Sin said, keeping her voice warm and the fact Sin herself had been part of more than a hundred Markets implicit.

Mae's eyebrows rose, obviously taking Sin's meaning. She always stood a little combatively, short but filling as much space as she could. Currently her arms were crossed and her elbows sticking out.

"It was, thanks," she said, her voice slightly stiff. Then she uncrossed her arms and reached out, putting one hand on Sin's arm. Sin looked down at Mae's hand, very pale on Sin's skin, her nails painted bright turquoise. "Look, Sin. I don't want Merris to succeed in setting us at each others' throats."

Sin looked down at her, and remembered that Mae's mother was gone, and as far as she could see Mae's father and brother were out of the picture as well. Mae was staying with her Aunt Edith in London to be near all of them.

"I don't want that either," Sin answered slowly, the words sticking in her throat. "I would have welcomed you to the Goblin Market. You know that. But I can't – I won't welcome you into my place."

"I can't stop trying for it," Mae said. "This thing, with Celeste's pearl. I want it." She swallowed and continued. "But if you get it before me, I swear I'll do everything I can to help you. You'll be my leader, too."

Sin couldn't say Mae would be her leader. She couldn't even contemplate that happening. But Mae's hand was gripping her arm tight, and she'd liked Mae from almost the first moment.

"Thanks," she said awkwardly. "I appreciate that."

She usually felt energized by the Market, glowing with all the small victories of the night and filled with new purpose. Not tonight. She summoned up a wicked smile for Mae anyway.

"I like the pigtails you're working tonight," she told her, and thought of Mae laughing at the book stall with Alan. "Anyone interesting around?"

Mae shrugged. "My pigtails are not the irresistible mantraps you might think." She let her hand drop from Sin's arm, but grinned up at her. "It must be kind of awesome. Being – well, you know."

"No, tell me," Sin coaxed, amused.

"Well, being completely gorgeous," Mae said, and went a bit pink. "You could have anyone you wanted. You wouldn't even have to try."

Sin thought about the boys at school and the guys on the street who bothered her because they thought black girls were exotic and easy and not to be taken seriously. It wasn't something she could turn off, not entirely, so it was something she'd learned to use.

She thought about getting up at six in the morning to stand outside in the raw air, mist lying clammy on the grass, and shave her legs using a basin and some cold water. She'd fixed her hair, hung the lanterns, planned the dancers' performances and costumes, and now the Market was being packed up and all her success was fading away with the morning. She had tried everything she knew, and she had not even been able to charm Alan Ryves.

Not that she cared about that.

"It's awesome," she said. "But it's not easy."

Mae rubbed at her face, the only sign she'd given to show she might be just as tired as Sin was. "What is?"

"You've got a point," Sin told her, and felt relaxed enough with Mae to give her a sideways hug before she made for her wagon, already thinking of the luxury of crawling in between soft sheets, the kids breathing slow and steady on either side of her.

She found Matthias the piper sitting on her front step, turning his pipe over and over between his hands.

"Sin," he said, rising gracefully to meet her. "You did well tonight."

"Thanks."

"Not your fault you were outdone."

Sin refused to lose ground in front of a pied piper, so she made herself smile. "You say the sweetest things."

"She's a clever girl, that Mae," Matthias said. "Maybe a bit too clever. You know she's been murmuring about a possible spy at the Goblin Market."

Sin made a face. It was just another of Mae's hundreds of ideas, like that of making profit and loss sheets, or inviting necromancers and pied pipers to travel with the Market.

"Maybe she's looking for an excuse if the magicians seem like they know too much, and someone wonders where they got the information," Matthias said. "I heard from a little bird that she's been seen talking to people from the Aventurine Circle."

The sleepiness cleared from Sin's mind suddenly. She was very aware of Matthias's watchful dark eyes, waiting for her reaction, of the cold grass around her ankles, and of the familiar weight of her knives against her back.

"Do you have any proof?"

"If I had any proof, I'd have brought it," Matthias said. "You Market people may not think much of the pipers, and we may think you're a little set in your ways, but neither of us want a leader beholden to magicians, do we?"

Sin's mouth shaped the word No though she did not say it, simply watching Matthias. She'd trusted Mae. She didn't know if she could trust the piper: they were all mercurial and strange, valuing singing more than speaking, music more than the faces of those they loved.

But if there was any possibility this was true, she could not afford to ignore it.

"Imagine the advantage she has, if the magicians are helping her," Matthias said. "She could beat you. Imagine what would happen to the Market then."

Sin licked her lips. "Any ideas on what I should do?"

"We saw the magicians down by the river near Southwark Cathedral," Matthias said. "Maybe you should go check the place out for yourself."

Sin nodded, slowly. "Thank you."

"One more thing?"

Matthias walked lightly as all the pipers did, noiseless and barely stirring the grass with his passage. He brushed by her on his way down the hill and his voice hit her ear like the music of the Market, beautiful and sinister.

"Watch your back."

If this cookie makes you think you would like to read an advance copy of the Demon's Surrender, you could always enter the Promotion Notion competition.

Also now the four main character cookies are done, I must think of what to do with the remaining cookies. Minor characters? Action scenes? Kissin' scenes? A musical number? Your thoughts as always are welcomed!

The Promotion Notion: Win The Only ARC of the Demon's Surrender

So today is the day I launch the contest for my one and only advance copy of The Demon's Surrender.

'I only have one copy,' I wailed to people unlucky enough to be in earshot. 'What on earth can I ask for? I loved last year's art and vids and songs! How do I decide between different things?'

'Maybe,' said, or rather shouted because I was wailing, these wise people, 'if the things all had the same aim.'

So the Promotion Notion was born. And it is: to enter, do anything you like for the Demon's Lexicon series. Make a Demon's Lexicon t-shirt and wear it. Do art, make a vid, make up a song or a poem. Do a book reading at a library. Make a flier for your library. Read Demon's Lexicon for your next book group. Put up the banner below, created by the lovely orexisbella , on your blog. Write an online essay or review. Something fun, something creative. Anything you can come up with, in short.

Edited to Add: The selection will be made by a small panel of impartial judges. There will also be other prizes, some handed out randomly and some chosen by judges, and I will show them to you as the month goes on. I will try to make them fabulous!

Note: Probably actual crimes, like stealing a plane to sky-write SURRENDER TO DEMONS across the sky, should not occur. You will likely be jailed for being a thieving demon-lover. (I would be so impressed I might call you and read the book to you, but it would not be worth it. Crime doesn't pay.)

And comment here, post on marmalade_fish or email me at sarahreesbrennan@gmail.com with your links or pictures or just telling us what you did.











Let the Promotion Notion commence! And thank you very much in advance to all those who participate in it. I hope you will have fun. The contest will run for one month and end on April 7th, so get ready, get set...