Coming Attraction & Excerpt: Seraphina

Some books don't have to be a fairy tale retelling or even have a thing to do with fairy tales, and yet somehow they still scream Fairy Tale.  Rachel Hartman's upcoming YA debut, Seraphina, is a high fantasy if anything, but something about it just calls to the fairy tale lover in me.  
I figured the same might be true of you, too, so I thought I'd share with you a sneak peek at Seraphina, which I'll be reviewing this summer when it's released, as well as having Rachel stop by for a video interview!

So after the cover and copy and all the usual jazz (hands), check out my little excerpt of Seraphina, and then run like hell to add it to your Goodreads and your wishlists, just like I did...

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Amazon | Goodreads

464 pages

Expected publication: July 10th 2012 by Random House Children's Books

Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.

Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen's Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.

In her exquisitely written fantasy debut, Rachel Hartman creates a rich, complex, and utterly original world. Seraphina's tortuous journey to self-acceptance is one readers will remember long after they've turned the final page.

I remember being born.

In fact, I remember a time before that. There was no light, but there was music: joints creaking, blood rushing, the heart's staccato lullaby, a rich symphony of indigestion. Sound enfolded me, and I was safe.

Then my world split open, and I was thrust into a cold and silent brightness. I tried to fill the emptiness with my screams, but the space was too vast. I raged, but there was no going back.

I remember nothing more; I was a baby, however peculiar. Blood and panic meant little to me. I do not recall the horrified midwife, my father weeping, or the priest's benediction for my mother's soul...

So. Who's definitely picking this one up?  ;)

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