Exclusive Reveal! New Cover design and Prologue from Laini Taylor

Hodder reveal cover design and exclusive extract from Laini Taylor's new novel coming out in September 2016!

 

Laini Taylor is the author of the popular "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" trilogy, a fantasy series written for Young Adults but also hugely enjoyed by adults. The reviews and ratings on Goodreads are exceptional!

Synopsis for "Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1":
Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky. In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low. And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.
“Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.”

Strange the Dreamer
Now Talyor has exclusively revealed the new cover for her forthcoming novel "Strange the Dreamer" which will publish in September. This book will be the first in a new series and here is the mysterious blurb taken from Amazon where it is available to preorder. 

STRANGE THE DREAMER is the story of:
- the aftermath of a war between gods and men
- a mysterious city stripped of its name
- a mythic hero with blood on his hands
- a young librarian with a singular dream
- a girl every bit as perilous as she is imperiled- alchemy and blood candy, nightmares and godspawn, moths and monsters, friendship and treachery, love and carnage

The covers are truly stunning - i love the colours and the imagery! They are so eye-catching and appealing. I can't wait to see them adorning the shelves of every bookshop!


If you can't wait until September, feast your eyes on this tantalising extract, the Prologue, which is desperately enticing and beautifully written!

Strange the Dreamer

Prologue

On the second sabbat of Twelfthmoon, in the city of Weep, a girl fell from the sky.

Her skin was blue, her blood was red.

She broke over an iron gate, crimping it on impact, and there she hung, impossibly arched, graceful as a temple dancer swooning on a lover’s arm. One slick finial anchored her in place. Its point, protruding from her sternum, glittered like a brooch. She fluttered briefly as her ghost shook loose, and then her hands relaxed, shedding fistfuls of freshly picked torch ginger buds.

Later, they would say these had been hummingbird hearts and not blossoms at all.

They would say she hadn’t shed blood but wept it. That she was lewd, tonguing her teeth at them, upside down and dying, that she vomited a serpent that turned to smoke when it hit the ground. They would say a flock of moths had come, frantic, and tried to lift her away.

That was true. Only that.

They hadn’t a prayer, though. The moths were no bigger than the startled mouths of children, and even dozens together could only pluck at the strands of her darkening hair until their wings sagged, sodden with her blood. They were purled away with the blossoms as a grit-choked gust came blasting down the street. The earth heaved underfoot. The sky spun on its axis. A queer brilliance lanced through billowing smoke, and the people of Weep had to squint against it. Blowing grit and hot light and the stink of saltpeter. There had been an explosion. They might have died, all and easily, but only this girl had, shaken from some pocket of the sky.

Her feet were bare, her mouth stained damson. Her pockets were all full of plums. She was young and lovely and surprised and dead.

She was also blue.

Blue as opals, pale blue. Blue as cornflowers, or dragonfly wings, or a spring—not summer—sky.

Someone screamed. The scream drew others. The others screamed, too, not because a girl was dead, but because the girl was blue, and this meant something in the city of Weep. Even after the sky stopped reeling, and the earth settled, and the last fume spluttered from the blast site and dispersed, the screams went on, feeding themselves from voice to voice, a virus of the air.

The blue girl’s ghost gathered itself and perched, bereft, upon the spearpoint-tip of the projecting finial, just an inch above her own still chest. Gasping in shock, she tilted back her invisible head and gazed, mournfully, up.

The screams went on and on.

And across the city, atop a monolithic wedge of seamless, mirror-smooth metal, a statue stirred, as though awakened by the tumult, and slowly lifted its great horned head.

I posted photos of the new cover and prologue on my Twitter feed yesterday after the embargo was lifted at 3pm and was absolutely blown away by the response they received and sheer volume of tweets that erupted across my timeline as other book bloggers posted more detailed links and fans retweeted the images in a zealous frenzy. The best comment I received was simply "I. Need. This. Now!" 

Laini Taylor clearly has a huge fan base and huge following. If you haven't already read her other books - you have until September to catch up! Then get in line for what promises to be one of the most eagerly anticipated publication days I have experienced in a while! 

Happy Reading! 

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