Notes From the Bedside Table

Sunrise was at 5:13 am, sunset will be at 9:03pm.  I got home last night at 10 pm and the sky was still light.  I LOVE this time of year.

Cool, cloudy, massively green out there, this morning.  The view from our dining room is full of blackberry bushes, trees and birds.  A chickadee has been hovering over the blackberries like a hummingbird and plucking petals off the blossoms and carrying them away - decorating a nest?  I don't know, but it's pretty interesting.

Lexington Ave. On my way to see Peter Sis!

I just got back from New York for the big book show.  I like New York, I like books, I like most of the people attached to the show, I have a hard time with crowds, kind of a conundrum when every aisle in the building is packed with (mostly) younger readers, bloggers, waiting in long lines for signed books.

Those of us who had work to do could only look at what was being handed over and yearn for the time to wait for that book.  That book for me was  Sinner,
Maggie Stiefvater's new book, but I didn't have the time to wait.

Ambassador Eoin Colfer and me at BEA

I did, however, make the time to wait in a line the next day with very excited bloggers (the very first person in line was hyperventilating; he kept saying, Oh, my God, I'm so excited!) to meet Eoin Colfer.  I am going to tell you now just how thrilled I was when Eoin caught my eye and then waved at me standing there in the line.  Sigh.  So, I waited through all the pictures and hugs and babbling of all those bloggers and a few librarians until it was my turn and, yes, I did the exact same thing.  I'm sure I babbled a little but I demanded a picture of the two of us AND a hug.  I love me some Eoin Colfer.  (Here signing The Reluctant Assassin, book 1 in the W.A.R.P. series.)

Book Love:  I did find some things I can't wait to read - they are still on their continental drift from that coast to this - but I had to make lists of the things I didn't pick up for immediate consumption so I can remember to look for them later.

Ember in the Ashes Manuscript

One of the books I picked up and then packed up to share with the staff is by a new author, Sabaa Tahir, who on her own has an amazing story to tell, but the one she's written, Ember in the Ashes, is a fast-paced adventure story that feels as if it's placed somewhere on this earth, somewhen in the far future, and is a not-so-gentle mix of mythologies from all the hot places, Rome, the Middle East, the Mojave.  The military is a harsh bunch trained from youth who feel it is their right to take what they want, when they want.  Our heroine, Laia, has lost the last person in her family to this brutal bunch.  She knows he is imprisoned somewhere and she joins the underground to find him.  Unfortunately, circumstances put her in the ultimate danger, in the home of the head of the military, vicious woman, the mother of one of the soldiers.  This is a tough, unforgiving life for the people living, and dying, here.  The book is packed with action and danger, but it isn't without hope and courage (and a big helping of romance!). 

I can't wait to start selling this book to our customers.  It was SO good and I am hoping there will be another one SOON!  I don't know when it's coming, I don't know the price...It's so new and exciting! I know it's published by Penguin Young Readers Group and everyone should put it on order at their Indie bookshops, like Eagle Harbor Book Company!   (Ages 13+)

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