Jo Fletcher Books

Books that Fell Through the Cracks (Late Acquisitions)

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Given my peripatetic existence over the last couple of years, there have been a number of address changes. These have resulted in a number of books getting sent to old and/or obsolete addresses. I’m currently visiting one of these old addresses, and have finally managed to get my hands on the following books (below) – so, apologies to publishers for not saying thank you, and hopefully I’ll be able to get to some of these soon (two in particular are very high on my TBR mountain, now).

Received: Julianna Baggott’s Fuse, Susan Ee’s Angelfall, Hugh Howey’s Shift, Stephen Kiernan’s The Curiosity, Stephen King’s The Wind Through the Keyhole, Gail Z. Martin’s Ice Forged, Frank P. Ryan’s The Snowmelt River

BooksReceived-20130801 (Shevaun)

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Baggott-2-FuseUKJulianna Baggott, Fuse (Headline)

After a young Wretch is abducted by the Dome and ‘cleansed’ of her fusings and imperfections, she is only able to repeat the Dome’s latest message: ‘We want our son returned. This girl is proof that we can save you all. If you ignore our plea, we will kill our hostages one at a time.’ Willux will go to any lengths to get his son Partridge back, including murder. Partridge sacrifices himself and returns, in the hope of taking over the Dome from within, only to uncover more of his father’s chilling, dark secrets.

Outside the Dome, Pressia, Bradwell, and El Capitan are decoding the secrets from the past – tucked away in one of the Black Boxes – to uncover the truth that might set the wretches free of their fusings forever. Those fighting Willux will be pushed over boundaries, both land and sea, heart and mind, in their quest – further than they ever imagined.

This is the sequel to Pure, which I also (shamefully) haven’t had a chance to read. It sounds like a fascinating series, but I kept missing it for one reason or another. Now that I have this second novel, as well as an ARC for book one, I really don’t have much excuse (save lack of time…) to read it. I’ll do my best to get to it soon.

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Ee-AngelfallSusan Ee, Angelfall (Hodder)

It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco where she’ll risk everything to rescue her sister and he’ll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

I kept seeing this advertised on the London Tube after I got back in January. I was intrigued, certainly (there seems to be a rise in Angel-related fiction in the past couple of years – some good, some not so much), and so when I was told a copy of this had arrived for me, I decided to place it relatively high on my TBR pile. I’ll hopefully get to this very soon (ah, those Famous Last Words, again…). I have sent some interview questions to the author, too.

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HoweyH-ShiftUKHugh Howey, Shift (Century)

In a future less than fifty years away, the world is still as we know it. Time continues to tick by. The truth is that it is ticking away.

A powerful few know what lies ahead. They are preparing for it. They are trying to protect us.

They are setting us on a path from which we can never return.

A path that will lead to destruction; a path that will take us below ground.

The history of the silo is about to be written.

Our future is about to begin.

I still have to read Wool before I can get to this, but I’ve heard a great many people say they enjoy the series. Ill-considered blog posts that the author may write notwithstanding, there is something about the series’s premise that intrigues me. So, I suppose I’ll get to it relatively soon, if I feel in the mood for some dystopian fiction (which is more often than not).

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KiernanS-CuriosityStephen Kiernan, The Curiosity (William Morrow/John Murray)

A haunting love story in which a man frozen for 100 years wakes up in today’s America to be hounded by tabloids, condemned by religious conservatives, and hunted by a presidential candidate while he strives to come to terms with his unique second life, one in which he falls in love with a beautiful scientist from a century after him.

Maverick scientific genius Erastus Carthage has developed a technique to bring frozen simple-celled animals back to life. But when his Arctic research vessel discovers a body encased in an iceberg, he seizes the chance to apply his pioneering process to a human being. The man Carthage’s lad awakens from death is Jeremiah Rice, a Massachusetts judge, who was born in 1868 and fell overboard in 1906. Jeremiah is an instant celebrity – chased by paparazzi, vilified by the religious right, and overwhelmed by a society he sees as brilliant and diverse but also vulgar and violent.

As his only ally biologist Kate Philo attempts to protect him from financial and political exploitation, the two fall in love. Meanwhile, Jeremiah’s time on earth is slipping away.

I hadn’t heard anything about this, until my sister mentioned it had arrived and she’d read (and enjoyed) it. It sounds rather intriguing, certainly, so I may have to read it within a week or two.

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KingS-DT4-WindThroughTheKeyholeStephen King, The Wind Through the Keyhole (Hodder)

Stephen King returns to the rich landscape of Mid-World, the spectacular territory of the Dark Tower fantasy saga that stands as his most beguiling achievement. Roland Deschain and his ka-tet – Jake, Susannah, Eddie, and Oy, the billy-bumbler – encounter a ferocious storm just after crossing the River Whye on their way to the Outer Baronies. As they shelter from the howling gale, Roland tells his friends not just one strange story but two… and in so doing, casts new light on his own troubled past.

In his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt-ridden year following his mother’s death, Roland is sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape-shifter, a “skin-man” preying upon the population around Debaria. Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, the brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast’s most recent slaughter. Only a teenager himself, Roland calms the boy and prepares him for the following day’s trials by reciting a story from the “Magic Tales of the Eld” that his mother often read to him at bedtime. “A person’s never too old for stories,” Roland says to Bill. “Man and boy, girl and woman, never too old. We live for them.” And indeed, the tale that Roland unfolds, the legend of Tim Stoutheart, is a timeless treasure for all ages, a story that lives for us.

I have never read any of King’s Dark Tower series, despite always seeing it in bookstores (on both sides of the Pond). The series, begun in 1974, gained momentum in the 1980s, and was concluded between 2003-2004, after the final three volumes were published. This is apparently a novel that can stand on its own for readers new and old (Goodreads lists it as “Dark Tower #4.5”). I think I’ll probably still try to hunt down at least the first book, before diving into this. It’s high on my Life Reading Priority list, but I’m not sure how quickly it will make its way onto the top of the TBR mountain. (I think I’ll probably read King’s On Writing, first, as I already own that…)

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Martin,GZ-IceForgedGail Z. Martin, Ice Forged (Orbit)

Condemned as a murderer for killing the man who dishonored his sister, Blaine “Mick” McFadden has spent the last six years in Velant, a penal colony in the frigid northern wastelands of Edgeland. Harsh military discipline and the oppressive magic of the governor’s mages keep a fragile peace as colonists struggle against a hostile environment. But the supply ships from Dondareth have stopped coming, boding ill for the kingdom that banished the colonists.

Now, McFadden and the people of Velant decide their fate. They can remain in their icy prison, removed from the devastation of the outside world, but facing a subsistence-level existence, or they can return to the ruins of the kingdom that they once called home. Either way, destruction lies ahead…

I am really interested in reading this series. I recently got the second volume, so now that I have picked up this as well, I hope to get to it ASAP.

Also on CR: Guest Posts “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (Again)” & “After Apocalypse”

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RyanFP-3P1-SnowmeltRiverFrank P. Ryan, The Snowmelt River (Jo Fletcher)

Chance has brought together four young people in the small, historic Irish town of Clonmel. Alan is Irish-American, Kate Irish, and the adoptive brother and sister Mark and Mo are Londoners although Mo originally hails from Australia and has an exotic spiritual quality that suggests something strange, almost magical, about her. They discover that they share a terrible secret, one that cannot be coincidence, and it makes them wonder if it was fate, and not happenstance, that really brought them together, and which now binds them inseparably as friends. And then, over the long hot Irish summer, the enchantment begins… The Snowmelt River is the first of a four-volume epic fantasy series, with each book a separate adventure in itself. All four novels revolve around the coming of age, and power, of the central characters, Alan, Kate, Mark and Mo, each a very different personality, yet each making his or her personal contribution to an epic odyssey.

Another series I didn’t know much about, before this came along (it’s possible this is the second copy that’s arrived – as I faintly recall seeing the second book at some point…). Not sure when I’ll be able to get to it, but I’ve heard and read some interesting things about it.

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Any of these grab your attention? Received anything good I should know about, or that I (or CR readers) might like?

An Interview with PETER LINEY

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Liney-Detainee

Peter Liney’s The Detainee has been on my radar for a little while, now, yet I keep getting distracted from reading it. With this interview, an excerpt and a guest post up on the blog already, I really should get my butt in gear and read the novel. Very soon, hopefully. In the meantime, here is what Peter had to say about his novel, writing, and more…

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Peter Liney?

Well, first and foremost, he’s a writer. I’ve done all kinds of jobs – selling sewing machines in the Oz Outback, modeling, acting, fashion buying, decorating, teaching, etc., etc. – but the one constant has always been writing, the one dream has always been success. And no, I don’t agree with writing for yourself; no matter what we do, we want to be appreciated for it. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “The Yesterday That Never Was” by Aidan Harte (Jo Fletcher Books)

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Today, I bring you a guest post by Aidan Harte, author of the historical fantasies Irenicon and The Warring States. Here, he discusses how authors perceive and play around with the historical periods they can write in…

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THE YESTERDAY THAT NEVER WAS

AidanHarte-AuthorPicFantasy and Historical Fiction are in essence extreme forms of Travel Fiction. They take us to destinations that can’t be otherwise reached. Historical Fantasy is a hybrid for brave souls looking for untraveled paths in unmapped lands. Its terrain is more expansive than it was – as the world tilts, reorienting itself to an Eastern pole, the West is no longer the default setting.

Anyone writing Historical Fiction must accomplish two, unfortunately contradictory, things:

1. Immerse the reader in another era.

2. Keep him from drowning in it.

The same onus falls on the writer of Historical Fantasy but he has an extra challenge – after building a believable world, he must test it to breaking point by introducing unbelievable elements. Happily, that’s not as difficult as it sounds. Privately, each of us believes that everyone who died before we were born was a sucker. They don’t know what we know and we can never forgive them for it. Just as the untraveled believe absurdities of foreigners, we patronise to people imprisoned in the past’s dusty mausoleum in a way we’d never treat those lucky enough to cohabitate the same point in time and space as us.

All this is to say that the average reader, whatever he tells himself, really has no trouble believing that citizens of olden times were credulous as slow-witted children. Given that, the introduction of supernatural elements is a doddle. Dragons are only marginally less improbable than the Charleston. Our condescension is not altogether without wisdom. The fact is that people living in pre-scientific societies did not delimit the supernatural from the everyday as rigorously as we Moderns. The average medieval chap would be surprised to see a unicorn, but not nearly as much as you – I’m assuming that you’re not reading this blog from an explored tract of the Amazon.

ClarkeS-JonathanStrange&MrNorrellIn the end, the fantastical elements in any novel are distracting fireworks that count for little if the bedrock of character, plot and storytelling is absent or faulty. The art is to find an intellectual and emotional connection between the reader and the past. I’ve praised Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell before, but some things bear repeating. Susanna Clarke inhabits her chosen milieu completely. Her infectious wit and generosity draws us helplessly in. The manner she treats the squabbling magicians bursting into Regency England as kindred spirits to the Romantic poets is inspired. It’s not the spells we remember so much as the awkward double act of Strange and Norrell, the noble manservant Stephen and the masterful Duke of Wellington.

That effortless marriage of voice and subject was a continuing inspiration for my Wave Trilogy, although the tone is very different. Irenicon and its sequel The Warring States are set in Etruria, an Alternate History Italy. The most challenging part of realising this medieval world was not creating the mysterious Waterfolk, or the flamboyant martial arts, or the baroque arch-villainy of Bernoulli. All that was pure imagination and came easy. What I really sweated over in the first book was rendering the conflict that was tearing the small town of Rasenna apart. It wasn’t that I lacked inspirational material; anyone perusing a history of medieval Italy will find conflict aplenty, but all the research in the world doesn’t help when you can’t see the living people underneath. You have to be able to smell their breath. It took me a while to understand why the Guelphs and Ghibellines keep quarrelling. The minutia of titles, dates and details obscured the human passions. The truth is that it wasn’t an abstract quarrel for primacy between the Holy See and the Holy Roman Empire that kept the city-states boiling. The factions’ banners were pretexts, vaporous as the shadow battles over “hinge issues” that animate the election years of our democracies. What was and is at issue was power. Who holds it. Who wants it. Once I realised that, realising the inherent drama was easier, though I still had work making a world of guilds, priests, contessas, and strange Italian names inviting to modern readers.

Harte-WaveTrilogy-1&2

This business of making readers at ease can be taken too far. The past remains another country. The average medieval person had views on morality that make the Taliban look easy going. Saints and relics occupied a space in 14th century Italy filled by iPads and smart phones today. I’ll buy just about any anachronistic mechanical contrivance in my Steam Punk novel, but nothing jars more than Victorian characters with the mores of 21st century hipsters. Why ever leave the sofa if we’re all the same?

We travel to experience the world’s variety but some contemporary authors, certainly those writing Literary Fiction, tip toe and genuflect around the issues of race, gender and age. This is patronising in a terrible new way. The joy of traveling is to see strange sights, people we’re not used to, smells that make us dizzy, flavours that make our tongues beg for mercy. Victorian authors, God bless their jodhpurs, had none of this pusillanimity. When Ryder Haggard had a yarn to spin, he waded into the unknown with aplomb – sensitivities be damned – and readers love him it.

FromHellThe sense of discovery is part of Historical Fantasy’s continuing appeal. It’s increasingly hard to imagine life Before Google, that benighted era we left behind in 1996. The world BG was a world where ignorance, speculation and rumour were the rule. The past is a place where the most fantastical things are routinely accepted. If an unmapped world could contain Australia and the Americas then why not unicorns and dragons too? The most ambitious Historical Fantasies pull us over the borders into the unknown. Peter Ackroyd (in Hawksmore) and Alan Moore (in From Hell) take the reader on tours of two very different Londons and make a convincing case that doers of dreadful deeds make their own reality. Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian can be read as Historical Fantasy. Its setting is clearly the 1850’s Mexican borderlands but the villainous Judge Holden – polyglot, immortal, alchemist – is an ogre direct from the Grimm’s fairy tales. Or perhaps he’s just a flamboyant fraud. Or perhaps he’s a figment of the narrator’s imagination. McCarthy’s expansive, elusive prose allows for many interpretation.

At its best, Historical Fantasy pits its constituent parts – History and Fantasy – against each other. That inner tension, that vast uncertainty, is why we love it. Ultimately none of us are quite as sure of ourselves as we pretend to be. How pleasant to go somewhere now and again, where absolutely nothing is certain.

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Aidan Harte’s IRENICON and THE WARRING STATES are both out now, published by Jo Fletcher Books in the UK.

Also on CR: Interview with Aidan Harte, Excerpt of Irenicon

Guest Post: “SEEDS IN THE DESERT” by Peter Liney (Detainee Blog Tour)

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Liney-DetaineeI’m not exactly sure when THE DETAINEE started to take shape in my mind. For a long time I had this notion that I wanted to write a book about the human spirit, about the fact that, no matter how dark the situation, given hope, we always find a way to survive. Like those seeds that lie dormant in the desert, year in, year out, waiting for rain, and when it comes, suddenly burst into the most beautiful of life. Or the victims of kidnapping, political prisoners, those held for no reason and often under the most appalling of circumstances, where do they find the will to survive? To wait for the arrival of that shower of life-giving rain? Continue reading →

Excerpt: THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS by Karen Lord (Jo Fletcher Books)

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Karen Lord is also the author of Redemption in Indigo, which I first heard of at the Kitschies Award ceremony back in February 2013. It immediately went on to my to-be-purchased list (I’m still getting around to it!). Luckily, I do have a copy of The Best of All Possible Worlds, the author’s second and already-critically-acclaimed novel, which I hope to read as soon as possible. In the meantime, I offer you this taste of the novel, courtesy of Lord’s UK publisher, Jo Fletcher Books…

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THE BEST OF

ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS

by Karen Lord

BEFORE…

He always set aside twelve days of his annual retreat to finish up reports and studies, and that left twelve more for everything else. In earlier times, he had foolishly tried retreats within commreach of his workplace, and that was not at all helpful. There would always be some crisis, something for which his help would be required. As his salary and sense increased, he took his retreats further and further away, until at last he found himself going off-planet to distant temples where the rule of silence and solitude could not be broken by convenient technologies.

This season, he had chosen Gharvi, a place with small wooden buildings scattered about a huge temple of stone, all set within the rain shadow of a mountain range. An endless ocean, both vista and inspiration, ran parallel to the mountains, and a beach between the two offered long walks to nowhere on either side. A place of two deserts, some said, for sea and land were bleak together – one boundless, one narrow, and both thirsty.

There was a place at home very like it, which had probably influenced his choice, but the sky was unique. The atmosphere was the cloudy blueish-lavender of a recently bioformed planet and the sun was scorching bright. It was so unlike the cool, strong blues and gentle sunlight of his home world that for the first few days he kept his head down and his door closed till nightfall.

On the twelfth day, he took his handheld, replete with work well completed, and put it in the box outside his hermitage door. He cooked and ate his evening lentils, slept soundly through the night and rose to prepare his morning porridge. There was a little water left over from the day before (he was ever frugal), but to have enough for washing he had to fetch the new day’s supply from the box. The young acolytes of the temple always put sufficient water and food into each hermit’s box before dawn. It was enough to stay clean, to fill the solar pot with porridge or pottage and to sip and slake the constant thirst that was the natural consequence of dry air and silence. The acolytes would also take away his handheld and safely transmit its contents to his workplace.

But his handheld was still there.

He paused, confused by this disconnect in the seamless order of the temple’s routine. He stared at the untouched box. He looked up and frowned in puzzlement at the squat shape of the temple, vaguely visible through a haze of heat, blown sand and sea spray.

Then he shrugged and went on with his day, a little dustier, a little thirstier but convinced that an explanation would eventually be made manifest.

The following morning, well before dawn, the sound of the box lid closing woke him from a sleep made restless by dreams of dryness. He waited a bit, then went to bring in the supplies and drink deeply of the water. His handheld was gone and a double ration of food sat in its place. He did not even peer into the darkness to catch sight of the tardy acolyte. Order had been restored.

‘Dllenahkh, with your level of sensitivity and strength, you must go on retreat regularly.’ So he had been told, long ago, by the guestmaster of his monastery. ‘You are constantly looking to set things to rights, even within yourself. A retreat will teach you again and again that you are neither indispensable nor self-sufficient.’

Put bluntly, learn to stop meddling. Commitment is important, detachment equally so. He congratulated himself on his developing ability to keep curiosity in check and spent the next few days in undisturbed meditation and reflection.

One day, after a long morning meditation, he felt thirsty and decided to fetch more water from his supply box. He stepped out with his glass drinking bowl in hand and set it on the edge of the box while he tilted the half-lid and reached inside. His hands were steady as he poured water smoothly from the heavy narrownecked jug. Moving slowly, he straightened and took a moment of blissful idleness, the jug left uncovered near his feet, to squint at the sun glare on the desert beach and the desert ocean, and to feel the coolness of the water creeping into his palms as he held the bowl and waited to drink. It was a child’s game, to hold a bowl of water and mark the increase of thirst with masochistic pleasure, but he did it sometimes.

He brought the bowl to his mouth and had a perfect instant of pale-blue ocean, bright blue glass and clear water in his vision before he blinked, sipped and swallowed.

Many times after, when he tried to recall, his mind would stop at that vivid memory – the neatly nested colours, the soothing coolness of the glass – and not wish to go any further. It was not long after that, not very long at all, that the day became horribly disordered.

A man walked out of the ocean, his head darkly bright with seawater and sunlight. He wore a pilot’s suit – iridescent, sleek and permeable – which would dry as swiftly as bare skin in the hot breeze, but his hair he gathered up in his hands as he approached, wringing water from the great length of it and wrapping it high on the crown of his head with a band from his wrist.

Recognition came to Dllenahkh gradually. At first, when the figure appeared, it was a pilot; then, as it began to walk, it was a familiar pilot; and finally, with that added movement of hands in hair, it was Naraldi – a man well known to him, but not so well known as to excuse the early breaking of a retreat. He opened his mouth to chide him. Six more days, Naraldi! Could anything be so important that you could not wait six more days? That was what he intended to say, but another thought came to him. Even for a small planet with no docking station in orbit, it was highly uncommon for a mindship to splash down so close to land that a pilot could swim to shore. Although he knew Naraldi, they were not so close as to warrant a visit at this time and in this place.

The pilot slowed his step and looked uncertainly at him with eyes that streamed from the irritation of salt water.

‘Something terrible has happened,’ Dllenahkh said simply.

Naraldi wiped at his wet face and gave no reply.

‘My mother?’ Dllenahkh prompted to break the silence, dread growing cold and heavy in his stomach.

‘Yes, your mother,’ Naraldi confirmed abruptly. ‘Your mother, and my mother, and . . . everyone. Our home is no more. Our world is—’

‘No.’ Dllenahkh shook his head, incredulous rather than upset at the bitterness and haste of Naraldi’s words. ‘What are you saying?’

He remembered that he was still thirsty and tried to raise the bowl again, but in the meantime his hands had grown chilled and numb. The bowl slipped. He snatched at it, but only deflected it so that it struck hard on the side of the water jug and broke just in time to entangle his chasing fingers.

‘Oh,’ was all he said. The cut was so clean, he felt nothing. ‘I’m sorry. Let me . . .’ He crouched and tried to collect the larger fragments but found himself toppling sideways to rest on one knee.

Naraldi rushed forward. He grasped Dllenahkh’s bleeding right hand, yanked the band from his hair and folded Dllenahkh’s fist around the wad of fabric. ‘Hold tight,’ he ordered, guiding Dllenahkh’s left hand to clamp on to his wrist. ‘Don’t let go. I’ll get help.’

He ran off down the beach towards the temple. Dllenahkh sat down carefully, away from the broken bits of glass, and obediently held tight. His head was spinning, but there was one small consolation. For at least the length of time it took Naraldi to return, he would remember the words of the guestmaster: he would not be curious, he would not seek to know, and he would not worry about how to right the tumbled world.

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Karen Lord’s The Best of All Possible Worlds is published by Jo Fletcher Books in the UK, and Del Rey in the US (both covers, below the synopsis).

The Sadiri were once the galaxy’s ruling élite, but now their home planet has been rendered unlivable and most of the population destroyed. The few groups living on other worlds are desperately short of Sadiri women, and their extinction is all but certain.

Civil servant Grace Delarua is assigned to work with Councillor Dllenahkh, a Sadiri, on his mission to visit distant communities, looking for possible mates. Delarua is impulsive, garrulous and fully immersed in the single life; Dllenahkh is controlled, taciturn and responsible for keeping his community together. They both have a lot to learn.

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Excerpt: IRENICON by Aidan Harte (Jo Fletcher Books)

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Here’s an excerpt from Aidan Harte’s debut historical fantasy novel, Irenicon, the first in the author’s The Wave Trilogy. For more on Aidan’s work and more, be sure to check out the interview he did for Civilian Reader. Irenicon is the first in a series. The sequel, The Warring States, was published earlier this year.

Read on for the first chapter of Irenicon…

 

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PART I:

ANNUNCIATION

And when the wise men returned with report of a new-born King of the Jews, Herod was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children in Bethlehem from two years old and under.

Amongst the lamentation of the mothers, the voice of Mary was heard in mourning. Her child, with the rest, was slain.

And behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and flee into Egypt: for Herod will seek the Mother, to destroy her also.

Barabbas 2:1–13

CHAPTER 1

‘Valerius?’

Madonna! Where was he?

If the boy got hurt, the Doc would mount her head on a stick next to the Bardini banner. Valerius might be a handful but the little stronzo was their only Contract this year. Besides, a dead Concordian would imperil all Rasenna. Sofia’s dark eyes flashed with anger and she swore again: in her haste she had forgotten her banner. Being unarmed in Rasenna used to be merely careless. These days, it was suicidal.

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Valerius ran down the sloping streets with his head in the air, pursued by his shadow made strangely large by the blood-washed light. Smashed roof-slates crunched underfoot like leaves in an autumn forest. He followed the trail of the topside battle as it moved downhill towards the river, focused on the jagged red slash of evening where the towers leaned towards each other across the emptiness. The Concordian had the pale blond curls, soft skin and, when he tried, the disarming innocence of a cherub. Now, scowling, he resembled something fallen and impious. Sofia, only five years older than Valerius, watched him like his mother. He had endured this ordeal since his arrival last Assumption, but to return to Concord unblooded? Ridiculous.

The hunt was practically the whole point of a year in Rasenna – that was what his father had paid for, not endless drills and lectures on banner technique. So when this chance came to sneak out, Valerius took it, vowing to get the General’s money’s worth. Two households in combat: what a story! This was Rasenna’s real meat: raids and rogue bandieratori. He wasn’t in real danger; this was still Bardini territory. Sofia wouldn’t be far away.

He couldn’t see the individuals leaping between rooftops, just the banners they wielded. Bardini black outnumbered Morello gold four to six, and the Morello were retreating – noisily. These boys weren’t bandieratori, they were like him, just bored students looking for fun. So it was an unofficial raid, then; the gonfaloniere would never sanction such a pointless attack.

Valerius followed through one backstreet after another, concerned only with keeping up. A black flag vanished behind a corner. He turned it himself and saw nothing but swallows listlessly drifting on air rising from the empty streets.

No Morello, thankfully. No Bardini either. Valerius stopped to listen. The wall he leaned against was built around the ghost of an Etruscan arch, the gaps between its massive blocks stuffed with crude clay bricks, bulging like an old man’s teeth.

He could hear the river now, but not the battle. He had been in Rasenna long enough to know that most raids ended ‘wet’. How could so many raiders disperse so swiftly? It began to dawn on him that Bardini flags need not be wielded by Bardini.

How could Sofia be so irresponsible? He was the Bardini Contract, the Bardini’s only Concordian student, and that made him an obvious target for the Morellos; he should be protected at all times. The General would hear of this.

‘Keep calm, Concordian,’ he rebuked himself, just as the General would have. He knew northern streets pretty well after a year, didn’t he? Not like a Rasenneisi, not as lice know the cracks, but well enough. He looked for clues to his location. That ceramic Madonna, perched in a streetcorner niche and drenched in blue-white glaze, that would orientate a Rasenneisi. The ghastly things all looked the same. The superstitions of Rasenna were not the answer; he would rely on Concordian logic. The raiders had led him down and south. If he followed the slope up he would eventually reach the shadow of Tower Bardini and safety.

He turned around. Now he had a plan it was easier to fight the urge to run for it. Yes: he was impressed with his courage, even if he did keep glancing overhead. If only his footsteps wouldn’t echo so.

At last, something familiar: the unmistakable drunken tilt of Tower Ghiberti – the Bardini workshop was close after all. Valerius’ relieved laughter trailed off when a rooftop shadow moved. Another silhouette emerged on the neighbouring row. And another. Lining the tower tops, above and ahead of him. He counted seven, eight, nine – a decina – but forced himself to keeping walking. Whoever they were, they were interested in him alone. It was not a flattering sort of attention.

Behind him someone landed on the ground and he was torn between two bad choices, to turn defiantly, or to run.

‘Walk.’

‘Sofia! What are you doing?’

‘Exceeding my brief. Doc said babysit. He didn’t mention

stopping you getting yourself killed.’

‘I wouldn’t be in danger if—’

‘I said keep walking!’

He whipped his head round to continue the argument, but went suddenly mute. Anger enhanced the Contessa’s beauty. Her dark eyes were wide and bright, her olive skin glowed like fire about to burn. She looked fabulous just before a fight.

‘What do we do?’ Valerius asked, his confidence returning.

Her wide-shouldered jacket was a bold red, in contrast with the earthy colours favoured by most bandieratori. She was not tall, but she held her head proudly. Below her large brow and sharp Scaligeri nose were the smiling lips that graced statues of cruel old Etruscans.

But she was not smiling now and her pointed chin jutted forward. ‘You’ll do as I say. I’m going to help these gentlemen get home. Give me your banner.’

‘I don’t have it,’ Valerius whispered, losing hope again.

‘Madonna. This is going to be embarrassing. I’m not exactly in peak condition.’

Valerius looked down at the sling on her arm. Without a single banner, against a decina, even Sofia…

‘What do we do?’

‘When I say run, run – Run!’

*

Sofia led the way through the maze of narrow alleys, not looking back or up. She knew by fleeting shadows overhead and loosened slates smashing around them how closely they were pursued. She skidded to a stop when they reached Piazzetta Fontana. The alley leading north was blocked by five young men. And now Valerius saw what Sofia already knew: they were not students. They were bandieratori. Their ruckus had been part of the deception.

Sofia pushed Valerius into an alley on the right – it was barely a crack between two towers, but it led north.

‘Run. Don’t look back.’

He didn’t argue.

She boldly stepped forward. ‘You bambini must be lost in the woods. You’re on the wrong side of the river.’

There was consternation as the southsiders saw who they had been chasing. ‘What do we do?’ asked one.

‘Her flag’s black. That makes her Bardini,’ said the tallest boy with assurance.

‘I don’t know – if Gaetano—’

‘Show some salt! There’s one of her and lots of us. Haven’t you heard who broke her arm?’ The tall boy continued talking even as he approached her. ‘She’s hasn’t even got a flag—’

Way too casual. Sofia was ready. She dodged his lunging banner and snatched it away in one movement and his jaw had no time to drop before she floored him with a neat parietal-tap. By the time she looked up the others had vanished, gone to get Valerius before she got them. Sofia returned to the narrow alley and vaulted left-right-left up between the walls.

Etrurians said that Rasenna’s towers were different heights because not even the local masons could agree. But they made good climbing, and bandieratori jumped between towers as easily as civilians climbed stairways. The upper storeys were peppered with shallow brick-holes, invisible from the ground, which had originally supported scaffolding but which now allowed the fighters to scale what they couldn’t jump.

With only one working arm, Sofia knew her climbing was awkward and inefficient. Even so, when she made topside she took a moment to catch her breath and scan the endless red roofs, feeling no need to hurry despite their head-start. This was her territory, and she knew every roof, every crumbling wall. They did not, and in the wan light of dusk they’d have to be cautious.

In the heat of the chase the boys let one of their number fall behind, and it wasn’t long before Sofia caught up. His falling scream was cut off by the crash of broken slates.

Two down, out-classed on strange rooftops. Normally in this situation it would be each raider for themselves, but these three knew that their only hope of ever getting home was to regroup and turn and fight together. They were waiting on the next tower Sofia leapt for, and gave her no time to recover her balance. Two of them launched a noisy attack to make her retreat, while the third slipped behind. As Sofia dodged flags she was struck in the back of her knee.

‘Ahh!’ she cried as she landed on her back, sliding a little before halting herself. She had no time to rise before she felt a flag-stick prodding against her neck. She lay still before the pressure crushed her larynx.

‘Beg your pardon, Contessa.’

Sofia ignored their giggling. She still had the advantage. She knew every tower bottom to top, their flags, the fastest routes, how old they were. She kicked her heel and a slate came loose, then several fell in its wake and the tower shed its skin with a shudder that drowned out the boys’ shouts as they all slid and tumbled together. Sofia went over the side with the rest of them, but she reached out and grabbed the unseen flagpole. She didn’t look down. No need.

She heard them land with the slates, breaking all together.

Sofia hauled herself onto the flayed rooftop, then climbed back down. She found Valerius waiting streetside with an amused expression on his face which, like his clothes, was splashed with blood. The boys’ bodies lay where they’d fallen, perfectly arranged in a semi-circle around him as if hunting him even in death.

‘Where’s the rest?’ she asked, more to herself than Valerius. She had been occupied, yet the others hadn’t gone for the Concordian. Wasn’t he the prize?

Valerius ignored her, more interested in rolling the corpses to see their last expressions.

‘Show some respect!’ she snapped. ‘The dead are forgiven.’

‘Sorry!’

‘Come here,’ she said, pulling Valerius towards her.

‘Oh Sofia, I was frightened too!’

She pushed his embrace aside roughly. ‘I’m checking for wounds, cretino!’

But no, none of the blood was his. Doc’s charge was intact, the Contract secure. ‘You got blooded, Valerius. Satisfied?’

*

It was a blade-sharp February, but this winter’s night the alleys around the workshop were ablaze with torches. Groups of Bardini bandieratori gathered on the corners, banners up, tense and jumpy. Sofia nodded to a tall young man slouching against a wall, his hood pulled low. The other boys intended to keep darkness at bay with a constant uproar, but Mule contented himself with silence. A flatfaced boy, he had a drooping eyelid that suited his sleepy air. Nobody had ever called him stubborn, and that was enough in Rasenna to earn him his nickname.

‘What’s got so many flags out?’

‘Burn-out,’ he said. ‘Ghiberti’s.’

Sofia saw the ruse now and swore. ‘We going over tonight?’

Mule shrugged. ‘Check in with the Doc. He was worried about you.’

‘He was worried about Payday here,’ said Sofia, angrily pushing Valerius forward. ‘Move it, will you?’

She led him to Tower Bardini. Black flags bobbed aimlessly around the base of its ladder. The single calm face in the crowd looked up. With no neck to speak of, the Doctor’s bald head hardly broke the hill of his shoulders. He made no large gesture when he saw her, just raised his eyebrows. Sofia nodded back and pulled Valerius out from behind her. When he saw the Concordian, the Doctor paled.

Sofia patted Valerius’ cheek and held up a blood-smeared hand. ‘Don’t worry, Doc. It’s not his.’

‘Are we safe now?’ Valerius asked.

She nodded briefly, keeping her eye on the Doctor’s reaction as he approached.

Valerius stepped forward and slapped her. ‘Show me some respect!’

The Doctor leaned forward and grabbed Sofia’s arm before she could strike back.

Valerius stuck a finger in her face. ‘Noble or not, you’re still just a Rasenneisi!’

The Doctor put his sturdy frame in between them. ‘We apologise, my Lord. My ward forgot her place through her zeal to protect you.’ His fingers tightened around her arm. ‘Right, Sofia?’

‘Right,’ Sofia managed through clenched teeth.

Valerius looked sour for a moment, then nodded. ‘Fine. I’m hungry after all that. Doctor?’

The Doctor released Sofia and bowed to Valerius. ‘I shall await you.’

Valerius watched him leave, then turned, smiling, to Sofia, the guiltless cherub once more. ‘I thank you for saving me, Contessa,’ he said stiffly and then, lowering his voice, ‘Look, sorry I had to do that. Concord’s dignity—’

‘Demands no less,’ Sofia said. ‘No apologies but mine are necessary, my Lord.’

‘Oh, Sofia! Don’t be so formal. Let’s be friends again,’ he said, and leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

She watched him scurry up the tower’s ladder. Had he stayed, he would have recognised the glow surrounding her. It was not her throbbing arm that had made her angry – and not even Valerius; the Concordian was acting properly, in his own way. It was the Doc, and that she was party to his appeasement. Distrusting herself around either of them, she decided to retire to the Lion’s Fountain. Mule and his brother were probably at the tavern already. The smoke of another burn-out tasted bad in every mouth. First, though, she grabbed a workshop flag. It wouldn’t do for the Contessa to be caught unarmed twice in one day.

***

Harte-WaveTrilogy-1&2

Review: GEMSIGNS by Stephanie Saulter (Jo Fletcher Books)

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SaulterS-GemsignsAn intriguing techno-socio-political science fiction debut

For years the human race was under attack from a deadly Syndrome, but when a cure was found – in the form of genetically engineered human beings, Gems – the line between survival and ethics was radically altered.

Now the Gems are fighting for their freedom, from the oppression of the companies that created them, and against the Norms who see them as slaves. And a conference at which Dr Eli Walker has been commissioned to present his findings on the Gems is the key to that freedom.

But with the Gemtech companies fighting to keep the Gems enslaved, and the horrifying godgangs determined to rid the earth of these ‘unholy’ creations, the Gems are up against forces that may just be too powerful to oppose.

I didn’t actually know anything about this novel, before I started it. Nevertheless, during a moment of book-funk, I browsed my TBR shelf, selected three books and Gemsigns had by far the best opening page. And the best second, third, and onwards. I soon found I was a few chapters in, and I couldn’t stop reading. I really enjoyed this novel. Continue reading →

Upcoming: “The Language of Dying” by Sarah Pinborough (Jo Fletcher)

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Pinborough-LanguageOfDying

I wrote an earlier “Upcoming” round-up for the talented, unstoppable Sarah Pinborough. Since then, though, I’ve learned that she has another novel coming out this year. Here’s some info and details about The Language of Dying…

Tonight is a special, terrible night.

A woman sits at her father’s bedside watching the clock tick away the last hours of his life.

Her brothers and sisters – all broken, their bonds fragile – have been there for the past week, but now she is alone.

And that’s always when it comes.

The clock ticks, the darkness beckons.

If it comes at all.

The Language of Dying will be published by Jo Fletcher Books in December 2013.