Ransom Riggs - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Book Trailer

                                

• Pages - 352
• Published by Quirk Books
• Date - 7 June 2011
• Age 
• Isbn - 978-159744761

A combination of both conspiracy thriller and supernatural horror, this takes a young, spoilt teenage boy in American as the protagonist. His grandfather tells him stories of his experiences in WW II, including being evacuated to a mysterious island off the coast of Wales with other children – who are not normal children. One can fly, another can create fire, yet another can turn invisible. The boy listens raptly to these stories, but on becoming older decides these are just the ramblings of an old man to impress his grandson – until his grandfather is brutally killed by an unknown, horrific assailant, and the stories suddenly become real. Determined to follow his grandfather’s history, the boy travels to the island to discover the truth, and pitches into a world where what should be fantasy breaks violently into our reality, taking him on a journey from gathering unease to outright terror. 


For fans of X-Files conspiracy-type thrillers, horror novels, and with echoes of The Mabinogion and the books of Alan Garner, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children also contains photographic clues scattered throughout the book, a page-turning plot full of twists, turns, sly characterization, and fully realized worlds, both ours and others, making it a book sure to appeal to your readers!


20th Centuary Fox have just bought the film rights for this book, and a film should be out in 2013.

Tobias Cooke - Ben Street: Secret of the Lost Soul Pt. 1

                          

• Pages - 272
• Published by Pen Press
• Age - 10+
• ISBN - 1907499806

Ben Street The Secret of the Lost Soul

by Tobias Cooke

Ben Street, a talented twelve year old singer and dancer, arrives at the same school about sixty years later and the ghost of the murdered pupil tries to make desperate contact with him. Ben mysteriously starts acquiring strange kinetic powers and knows he must find out why. Hilarious supernatural situations in class and in school show rehearsals are the result!

The first in a new series of teen mystery books from Tobias Cooke is packed full of suspense and adventure. “I wanted to convey the contrasting lives of kids from poor and rich backgrounds. How activities like street dance can break down social barriers,” says the author.

“The ultimate purpose of the book is not only to encourage reading, but to generate sales and funds for a Philanthropic reason. If it can do well, over time I would like to set up a charitable foundation to help young people with the cost of university education,” adds Tobias.

Ben Street has already received praise from readers of all ages, who love the character’s mix of stage performance, humour, mischievousness and magic. The scene has been set for book two...

“I was taking Spielberg's advice in producing this by writing it initially for myself to enjoy. It is the book I would have chosen to read as a kid.” Tobias Cooke

Tobias Cooke has lived a real life mystery through his work as a criminal lawyer. Born in Oxford in 1961, he studied Law at Kingston University and completed his legal training in Sussex. Tobias spent a brief spell in Australia with his family, before returning home to Worthing to begin work on his first book. He already has a sequel planned for the Ben Street series.

Caroline Lawrence - Western Mysteries blog tour stop #11 - Picturing the Wild West

It's so fantastic to be asked by both the publishing companies and authors to host so many blog tours at the moment. However, today's great post is by the brilliant author Caroline Lawrence, who is particularly well-known for her popular Roman Mysteries. 


Caroline is promoting her new series which is centred around a wild western detective theme. This story will have your heart in your mouth almost around ever corner and every page that you read. 


I would like to both welcome and thank Caroline for writing such a great post. I have to say that I particularly like the first book cover option due to its appealing quality and the great use of colour.


Thanks to Nina at Orion for organising this blog tour. I hope you all have a great weekend.

Picturing the Wild West

My new series is called the Western Mysteries, but its just as much an historical novel as a Western. In other words, my fictional characters interact with real people in a real place at a specific time.

My real place is Virginia City, Nevada Territory and my real time is September 1862. Think Dickens in Deadwood. Or the Famous Five as Forty-niners. This rough and ready mining town exploded into existence with the discovery of silver veins deep in the mountain. All the buildings youd associate with a Western town came into existence; first in canvas, then wood, finally brick. Virginia City still exists, and has kept a lot of its character. You can still visit a dozen saloons, the fire station, the courthouse and jail, even a big old music hall. And archaeologists have even done an excavation on the site of one of the saloons. They found fascinating artefacts like spittoons, beer bottles, oyster shells, coins, buttons and bullet casings. This was a read frontier town where almost everybody carried a firearm. Somebody, maybe Mark Twain, said that at night you could read by the light of gunfire.

So how to devise a cover that reflects the gritty, menacing, blackly funny world portrayed in my books?

My first idea was to design a cover based on one of the old Dime Novels much beloved in the American West? Like a Dime Novel our cover could show an exciting scene from the first few chapters. My hero, a 12-year-old named P.K. Pinkerton, has found his parents scalped and murdered by desperados disguised as Indians. He has to get out of town fast, so he leaps onto a passing stagecoach, scrambles up on top and makes himself as flat as a postage stamp. My publishers and I thought this would be a great scene for the cover, as it is exciting and comes early in the story. We referenced real stagecoaches as well as scenes from Red Dead Redemption and came up with this.

This cover (above) is exciting, but it doesnt quite convey danger and menace of the story. Or the deadpan humour. Or its grittiness. We were also worried that it might seem too babyish. With drinking, smoking, gambling and gunplay, this book is definitely not babyish.

One of the things I love most about writing historical fiction is the research, getting the details of the culture right and especially the artefacts. So I considered putting some of the guns on the cover. Maybe a spittoon and playing cards, too. Then I had the idea of using a document of the time: a deed for a silver mine. A newspaper front page. Or a WANTED poster!

The WANTED poster format seemed perfect; straightaway it says Western and outlaws. My husband and I created an image for P.K.s face by using the photo of a Native American child, then stretching it to make him (or her?) look older, then ramping up the contrast, then adding a period hat, then drawing it. I did the first four steps and my husband Richard did the drawing. The solemnity of the childs face tones down the jaunty alliterative title Deadly Desperados. The sun bleached colours and distinctive typeface suggest a specific time and place. And the word WANTED is both a subliminal suggestion and a tantalizing hook.

Does it work? The folk over at Fixabook like it. But as for kids and their parents, only time will tell. And Ive just heard that my American publishers have independently come up with the idea of P.K. clinging to the top of the stagecoach, but from a slightly different angle. Watch this space.

Garth Nix & Sean Williams - Trouble Twisters - Book Review

                                    

• Pages - 326
• Publisher - Egmont UK
• Date - 6 June 2011
• Age 10+
• ISBN: H/B 978 1 4052 5857 9
• ISBN: P/B 978 1 4052 5856 6

Twin siblings Jack and Jaide discover they are pivotal to a secret supernatural organisation that protects the earth from marauding Evil! Portland might seem like a quiet coastal town, and their grandmother is perhaps no dottier than anyone else's, but it soon becomes apparent that the strange things going on around them are anything BUT ordinary. It's all very well discovering that you suddenly have magical powers, but when you don't know exactly what they are, or how to use them, then facing impending peril doesn't seem like a very good idea at all...


It's not that long ago that I mentioned the lack of good books being published within the fantasy genre. However, a couple of weeks after this post, this particular book popped up in my mail box. Imagine how happy I was to see this book - it made my week.


This is the first book to be published in a series of five books. It's an amazing collaboration between two of the finest authors that Australia has to offer. Two amazingly talented authors, who have written so many great books in the fantasy realm, and sold millions of copies around the globe. This book is a dream come true for some of us. 


From the very start, the reader is marched down the fantasy garden path, but with a mysterious edge that captivates the imagination. The story moves from normal to totally bizarre within just a matter of minutes. Twins Jake and Jaide see their house suddenly explode, their dad disappear and themselves being shipped off to crazy Grandma X, of whom neither have met before! 


This was a great start for me and I found that the story just got better and better. It is a great amalgamation of ideas from both authors. It is packed full of petrifying moments, magic, talking cats and many memorable moments. One of my favourite scenes included a mass of possessed rats trying to drive a bulldozer! This to me, highlighted one of many pure fantasy magic moments, that should be read and appreciated many times over.


This is a must read for all fantasy book lovers. It will take you away from reality and place you into a bubble that is fuelled with imagination. This is a great read that will appeal to both boys and girls as it incorporates many strong role models throughout the story. Great stuff and more to come in this thrilling new series.





If you're interested to find out and understand how the collaborative writing process works between two major authors. Then take a look at the youtube video below, as the two authors discuss how the story took its shape and the writing process in more detail.

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New Children's Books Published in the US - June 2011 - Post One

                            

Elise Broach - Missing on Superstition Mountain - Published by Henry Holt -  21 June 2011 

A legendary gold mine, mysterious deaths, and a foreboding mountain set the stage for a new mystery from bestselling author Elise Broach. The Barker brothers--ages 11, 10, and 6--have moved from Chicago to a small town in Arizona that seems like the most boring place on earth. Boring, that is, until they discover that the mountain they are forbidden to explore--appropriately called Superstition Mountain--is keeping some pretty big secrets. Searching for their missing cat, the boys stumble across three human skulls, and with their new neighbor Delilah, they set out to solve the mystery of who died, and how.


Age 9-12

Jacqueline West - The Shadows: The Books of Elsewhere - Published by Dial - 30 June 2011

Hair-raising adventures can be found close to home this summer. Soon after 11-year-old Olive Dunwoody moves into a rundown Victorian mansion with her nerdy mathematician parents, she realizes something isn’t quite right. It's full of oddities like strange paintings hanging on the walls and a trio of talking cats lurking in the shadows. While Olive's parents busy themselves solving math problems, she decides to work out the mysteries of the dusty old pictures by plunging headlong into the world on the other side of the frames. But, will she be able to escape the hidden dangers of Elsewhere? Age 9-12

                      

Dan Elish - The School for the Insanely Gifted - Published by HarperCollins - 21 June 2011

Daphna Whispers is insanely gifted.
At age two and a half, she composed her first sonata.
At age eight, she completed an opera.
And now, at eleven and three-quarters, she is orchestrating a piano rhapsody.
With a rÉsumÉ like that, it's no wonder she is a student at the prestigious Blatt School for the Insanely Gifted. But as sixth grade draws to a close, Daphna's mind is far from the upcoming "Insanity Cup" competition. She's preoccupied by her mother's disappearance two months ago.
When a mysterious man breaks into Daphna's small New York apartment, Daphna discovers that her mother's disappearance wasn't a random accident. Her mother knew something—and now somebody is after Daphna. What starts out as a simple fact-finding trip to the basement with her friends spirals into an international expedition. And while Daphna hopes to uncover the secret of her mother's disappearance on her global trek, the last thing she expects to uncover is an outrageous secret about the Blatt School. Age 9-12


                         

Michael Carroll - The Ascension: A Super Human Clash - Published by Philomel - 30 June 2011

They'd done it. Not only had Roz, Abby, Lance, and Thunder survived their first battle with a super villain, they'd defeated him. Krodin was dead, and they had saved the world. Now everything could go back to normal-good old, boring normal. School. Parents. Friends.

But three weeks later, the world suddenly changes. The United States is under martial law, the people are little more than drones, and where Central Park should be there now stands a massive glass-and-steel building, home to the all-powerful Chancellor.

In Michael Carroll's follow-up to the acclaimed Super Human, the world has been remade in the Chancellor's image, and it's about to get much much worse. Only this young band of heroes has a chance of stopping him, but can they return the world to what it was, or will they be stranded in this alternate world forever? Age 12+

Helen Stringer - The Midnight Gate - Blog Tour - Fantasy, Reality and Belladonna Johnson.

        
It has been a real rush to get this post up in time as part of The Midnight Gate blog tour, but here we are . . . . finally! Thanks to Helen for getting this post to me to highlight and promote this eagerly awaited second book, which has just been published by Feiwel and Friends (early May) in the US. However, it is due to be published in the UK at some point, but no release date has yet been confirmed. 


I hope you enjoy Helen's post on Fantasy, Reality and Belladonna Johnson.

Life is full of little ironies. You know, things like moving to Los Angeles to go to film school and get into “the business” and then ending up writing books instead. Books set in England…where I haven’t lived for decades. 

So here I am, two books into a series set in a place that I visit quite frequently but is slightly frozen in time for me. For example, the school that Belladonna and Steve attend is based on my old school in Liverpool, which used to be three Victorian houses joined together with rickety-looking passages, and one block-like new building. Last time I was home, I drove by the old place and barely recognized it – the houses were still there but the old netball courts have now vanished under a mass of even newer buildings. I hope the assembly hall is still the ballroom from one of the houses (with the rotting plaster stars on the ceiling that I mention in Spellbinder), but I doubt it.

Some friends back in the UK expressed surprise that I set my books there and not here in the US, but they shouldn’t be – distance has a way of clarifying the memory. Things that we might not notice when they are part of our everyday experience become so much more significant when we are far away. 

Take cold, for example. I live in California now and have done for many years. Cold for me these days is anything around 70°F (20°C), which isn’t actually cold at all.  When I go home in the winter I not only feel really, really cold, I’m also much more aware of what it is to be genuinely freezing. Sitting in California, with its tediously cloudless skies, I get positively nostalgic about leaden skies, unrelenting rain and the ability to see your own breath. Which is why Spellbinder is set in the north of England in October and Midnight Gate the following February. (The coldest I have ever been was staying at my sister’s in Liverpool one February – the pipes froze and the indoor plants had frost on them!) 

The same thing applies to places. Most of the places in the books are based on real ones in the UK, sort of conflated into a single imaginary town. There are huge chunks of Liverpool, mixed with Kendal (which has some fantastic street names) along with various additional bits of Cumbria and North Wales. Morcambe Bay will be coming into play in book three. Seeing them all in my mind’s eye rather than out of the window allows me to focus on details, the essence of the places, rather than being overwhelmed or restricted by the reality.

And then there’s language. When I was trying to break into the entertainment business I spent years absorbing the idioms and rhythms of American speech in order to write believable American dialogue. With Spellbinder I had to write English characters again, so the Americanisms had to go. This was surprisingly difficult!  One of the things I did was return to British spelling to sort of get my mind in the groove, but as my main publisher is here in the US, we still had lots of discussions about which “Britishisms” were acceptable and which had to go because readers wouldn’t understand them. For example, in the books Steve plays football, so there was a rather lengthy exchange about whether that should be changed to “soccer” for the US. In the end they decided it didn’t really matter and stuck with “football” (thank goodness!). Elsie’s Edwardian expressions caused some controversy, too. “It’s a bit of a rum do,” in particular!  Of course, you’d think that this would make dealing with the UK publisher easier, but no – they noticed all the “Americanisms” that somehow still snuck through. You can’t win!

The story I am working on at the moment is set here in America. It’s about 100 years in the future, but still recognizably the remnants of the contemporary USA. I’m back to the American language I spent so long learning, but sticking with places other than the one where I currently live, relying instead on my memories of Century City, Lake Tahoe and Virginia City and the endless ribbons of road between them all. Places that, for all their familiarity, somehow feel much more fantastical than anything in Spellbinder and Midnight Gate, including the Land of the Dead.

Book cover and artwork are by the amazing David Wyatt Images are subject to copyright.

Helen Moss - The Mystery of the Whistling Caves - Book Review

• Pages  - 176
• Publisher - Orion Books
• Date -   7 July
• Age - 10+
• ISBN: 9781444003284 

When Scott and Jack Carter have to stay with their great aunt for the summer they steel themselves for the most boring holiday ever. But then they meet Emily Wild and her loveable dog, Drift. Emily shows them the lighthouse, the castle - and the amazing whistling caves. Legend has it that when the caves stop whistling the castle will be attacked - and that's exactly what happens! Priceless treasures are stolen and Emily and the boys are determined to investigate. But how was the treasure smuggled out of the castle? Why did the caves stop whistling? And can the friends solve the mystery in time to catch the thief? The first in an exciting new adventure series - with five more gripping mysteries to come!

As soon as I started to read this book, I was instantly transported back to my younger reading days. These were happy days, where I could be found with my nose buried in the adventures of the Famous Five or the Secret Seven, and loving every minute of them. I had this very same feeling wash over me as I was reading this book.


This is a great debut book for a new author, who in total has now penned six books, in this Blyton-esque series. The book is a fast-paced, detective adventure with a mysterious problem at its core which is required to be solved. Set in an idyllic back drop of castles, caves and a lighthouse for a hotel, the small town of Carrickstowe can be found situated by the coast. Three children and a dog turn adventure seeking into a full blown investigation. They each find themselves trying to locate the missing treasure of Carrickstowe, which disappears from the local museum.


This is a simple, but fast-paced story, packed full of fun and crazy characters. I particularly enjoyed the mad references from Mrs Loveday, which were intermingled throughout the story. Mrs Loveday, who is a poker gambling elderly lady, gets confused and muddles up a variety of sayings. One particular example that made me chortle was 'the windmill of opportunity' .


This book is a really enjoyable read, and with five more books coming out this year, there will be many more adventures to come our way. Nostalgic adventure stories are back once more, thrillingly enjoyable!


Adventure Island books.......


The Mystery of the Whistling Caves - July 2011
The Mystery of the Midnight Ghost -  July 2011
The Mystery of the Hidden Gold - Aug 2011
The Mystery of the Missing Masterpiece - Aug 2011  
The Mystery of the Cursed Ruby - Sep 2011
The Mystery of the Vanishing Skelton - Sep 2011

BIOGRAPHY

Helen Moss was born in 1964 and grew up in Worcestershire and Saudi Arabia. 
After a degree in psychology and philosophy at Oxford University, Helen went on to do PhD research at Cambridge University. She recently spent a year in Portland, Oregon with her family, and on returning decided to switch direction and devote herself full-time to writing. She signed up for some creative writing classes and was immediately hooked. 
Helen lives in a small village just outside Cambridge, with her husband, two young sons, two border collies, two guinea pigs, two dwarf hamsters, twenty hens and a cockerel called Wilfred.

                                  

Caroline Lawrence - The Western Mysteries Blog Tour

New Books Published - June 2011 (Part Two)

                          
Andrew Lane - Young Sherlock Holmes:Black Ice - Published by Macmillan - 3 June 2011

The year is 1868 and fourteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes faces his most baffling mystery yet. Mycroft, his older brother, has been found with a knife in his hand, locked in a room with a corpse. Only Sherlock believes that his brother is innocent. But can he prove it?

In a chase that will take him to Moscow and back, Sherlock must discover who has framed Mycroft and why . . . before Mycroft swings at the gallows.

Young Sherlock Holmes is a series of novels in which the iconic detective is reimagined as a brilliant, troubled and engaging teenager – creating unputdownable detective adventures that remain true to the spirit of the original books.

                           
Carlos Ruiz Zafon - The Midnight Palace - Published by Orion - 2 June 2011
The book begins with a chase through the streets of Calcutta in May 1916. Lieutenant Peake pauses for breath outside the ruins of the Jheeter's Gate station knowing that he only has a few hours to live. Inside his overcoat he is sheltering two newborn babies - twins, a boy and a girl. Pursued by his would-be assassins, Peake runs at full tilt to the house of Aryami Bose, to whom he entrusts the children. In 1932 we meet the boy, Ben, and his group of friends the night before they are due to leave St Patricks orphanage. They have formed a secret club, The Chowbar Society, that meets each week at midnight in the old ruin they have christened The Midnight Palace. Their final meeting is due that evening but then Aryami Bose turns up at the orphanage with Sheere, Ben's sister, and tells them the story of the parents they never knew. Their father was an engineer and writer who died in tragic circumstances at the inauguration of Jheeter's Gate station. But as the novel unfolds, there is more to this story than meets the eye and they are lured by a shadowy figure from the past into a final showdown in the ruins.

                            
A.G Taylor - Enemy Invasion - Published by Usborne Publishing - 2 June 2011
Superpowers and conspiracy collide in this unmissable action-packed sci-fi thriller, sequel to 'Meteorite Strike' and 'Alien Storm'. Sarah and Robert Williams are no ordinary brother and sister. With superhuman powers originating from the mysterious Fall Virus that left thousands of others in a coma, the two are now working with government agency HIDRA and other superhuman kids to find a cure. The powerful alien that first sent the virus to Earth, known only as 'The Entity', is ready to attack again, determined to bring humanity under its control for good. It is being aided by Sarah's arch-enemy, Major Bright, and malicious software expert, Marlon Good, who have their own plans for world domination - but the key to their plans is 14-year-old Hack and his technology-manipulating powers. Before Sarah and her friends can get Hack to safety, Major Bright abducts him and uses his power to create an army of alien spider-robots that will be able to spread the virus across the world. Wave after wave spiders are launched in a lethal attack on London. Can the superhuman team stop the disaster or have they finally met their match? This is the final chapter in the mind-blowing trilogy of mesmerizing heroes, superpowers and non-stop action by critically acclaimed author A.G. Taylor.

                              

Ben Molyneux - Arthur Archer and the Time Traveller's Chronicles - Published by Janus Publishing - 14 June 2011

Trees do not have pulses, he said to himself sternly ... he pulled a handful of the mistletoe out of the way and there, to his utter amazement, he saw a door. Arthur is a seemingly ordinary teenager with a seemingly ordinary life until he stumbles across a strange and mysterious tree in the grounds of his new home at Rose Cottage. Unable to contain his curiosity, he investigates and ultimately changes his life and perhaps the past forever. For Arthur has discovered a time portal and finds himself transported back to the year 1643 during the English Civil War. His only hope is his sister, Emily, who discovers the secret of the time portal and who must find and warn her brother that unless the two of them return home within twenty-four hours then they will both be trapped in the past. But can the two of them find their way home during one of England's most bloody and grotesque periods? Or will Emily and Arthur have to spend the rest of their lives in a world where witch-hunts, battles, beheadings and the Black Death are commonplace?

New Books Published - June 2011 (Part one)

                                      

Diana Wynne Jones - Earwig and the Witch - Published by HarperCollins - 9 June 2011

Everyone knows that orphanages are horrible places. But Earwig has a surprising amount of power over everyone else at St Morwald’s Home for Children, and loves it there. So the last thing she wants is to be sent to live with the very strange Bella Yaga…
Earwig was left at St Morwald's as a baby. Unlike the other children, she loves it there, mostly because she has the run of the place and seems to be able to persuade people to do as she wants. Then one day Earwig is chosen to live with a very strange couple: Bella Yaga, her new 'mother', is actually a horrible witch. Earwig will need all her ingenuity (and some help from a talking cat) to survive…

                                 

Kit Berry - Moondance of Stonewylde - Published by Gollancz - 2 June 2011

he cracks are beginning to show in the idyllic Stonewylde community. As Yul and Sylvie's forbidden friendship grows into something deeper, Magus' true nature starts to emerge through his charming facade. Ever since Yul defied him at the Summer Solstice, his power has been waning, and his mood darkening. Yul is the problem - and Magus is going to deal with him. Nobody challenges his authority and survives. Sylvie is in danger too. Magus has discovered her secret and now, for all its beauty, her magical gift and Magus' desire to possess it is putting her life at risk. As each full moon rises Sylvie is made to suffer more, and the agony she endures as her magic is stolen leaves her increasingly exhausted, sapping her will to fight back. Unless Magus can be stopped, every full moon could be Sylvie's last. As glorious summer turns to golden autumn, the magic of Stonewylde is becoming a curse to the very people it should nurture . . . Are Yul and Sylvie the only ones who see the truth behind Magus' mask of kindness? Why is everyone so deceived by his charm - and why is Mother Heggy, the mysterious wise-woman the only one who will help them? The darkness of winter is coming, and as it does Sylvie and Yul's lives hang by a whisker. Either they will save each other, or history will repeat itself at the sinister standing stone above the cliffs.

                                  

Saci Lloyd - Momentum - Published by Hodder Children's - 2 June 

London, the near future. Energy wars are flaring across the globe - oil prices have gone crazy, regular power cuts are a daily occurrence. The cruel Kossak soldiers prowl the streets, keeping the Outsiders - the poor, the disenfranchised - in check. Hunter is a Citizen: one of the privileged of society, but with his passion for free running and his rebel friend Leo he cannot help but be fascinated by the Outsiders. So when he meets Outsider Uma, he is quickly drawn into their world - and into an electrifying and dangerous race to protect everything they hold dear.

                            

Caroline Lawrence - The Case of the Deadly Desperados:Western Mysteries - Published by Orion Children's - 2 June 2011

When desperados kill a preacher and his wife in a small frontier town, their foster child P.K. is forced to go on the run. P.K. must get a valuable letter to the Recorder’s Office before anyone else can get their hands on it. It’s not easy: Virginia City in 1862 is a glorified mining camp on a barren mountain above a great vein of silver. Seething with miners below ground and hustlers above, it’s a dangerous place, full of gamblers, hurdy girls, saloon-keepers and gunmen, all of them on the make. When twelve year-old P.K. Pinkerton arrives there, homeless, penniless and hunted, things don’t look good. But armed with a Smith & Wesson seven-shooter and a knack for disguises, P.K. takes on the tricksters and desperados who are out to get him and he finds possible allies: Sam Clemens, the new reporter for the paper, a gambler called ‘Poker Face Jace’ who knows how to tell if someone is bluffing, a derringer-packing Soiled Dove, and a Chinese photographer’s apprentice called Ping. 

The Midnight Gate by Helen Stringer - Blog Tour Dates Week Two

                                      
Helen Stringer will be stopping by (next week) to post some of her articles for you to read as part of her second week of "The Midnight Gate" blog tour. You will find some delicious posts to whet your appetite. Follow along and have a peek!

May-23 Mundie Kids -  http://mundiekids.blogspot.com/

May-24 Poisoned Rationality -  http://www.prationality.com/

May-25 Cracking the Cover - http://www.crackingthecover.com/category/middle-reader/

May-26 Bookworming in the 21st Century - http://www.bookworminginthe21stcentury.com/

May-27 The OWL for YA-  http://owlforya.blogspot.com/

May-30 Wicked Awesome Books - http://www.wickedawesomebooks.com/

May-31 Teenreads.com -  http://blog.teenreads.com/

Jun-1 KidLitFrenzy - http://www.kidlitfrenzy.com/

Jun-2 Mr. Ripley's Enchanted Books - http://mrripleysenchantedbooks.blogspot.com/

Jun-3 The Joys of Reading - http://thejoysofreading.com/

Book synopsis

It’s been two months since Belladonna Johnson discovered she was the Spellbinder, and she’s full of questions about her powers. When a ghost finds Belladonna and her classmate, Steve, and gives them a mysterious map, the friends don’t know if they should be looking for or hiding from the one person who holds the answers to Belladonna’s powers: the Queen of the Abyss. Throw into the mix that Belladonna’s parents, who are ghosts, have disappeared and that her brand-new and maybe even sinister foster family seems to know more than they’ll let on, and you have a sequel made of high adventure and intrigue, seasoned with affecting characters and topped with a dollop of wit.