Yes, that's right, a precious finished copy of the Candlewick Press edition of The Night Itself - retitled THE NAME OF THE BLADE for US release, and due out in November of this year - has arrived and it is a hardcover of surpassing prettiness if I do say so myself. Get out your smelling salts, lock yourself away somewhere private, and prepare yourself for sexeh sexeh book shots (I HAVE SO MANY OF THEM I MAY HAVE A PROBLEM SEND HELP):
So, here is the front. Which, you may note here, is incredibly shiny and has more coloured foils on it than you can shake a stick at - dusky purple for the Nekomata, gold for its eyes and the lettering, a bit more gold and some black on the grip of the katana, and silver for the blade itself. Its rather shockingly lovely in the flesh. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE:
Let's hear it for brightly coloured endpapers I love them so. This is one of the best things about hardcovers, I swear. So bright, so yellow, my preccccious...
And what colour goes the best with dusky purple dust jackets and bright yellow endpapers? Why it's pale dove grey and silver, which is the exact shade chosen for the binding, as you can see.
But what's that? A strange symbol on the spine? Let's check the dust jacket again!
It's there too! And all shiny and silver and purple again, hubba hubba.
Also, it feels worth mentioning that this is a super dinky little hardcover - it's smaller than a trade paperback here in the UK and not much bigger than a mass market paperback. I've never seen such a petite hardcover edition - it's practically dwarfed by the Candlewick Press hardcover of, say, Daughter of the Flames or Shadows on the Moon. I'm not sure why that is, but it's kind of precious, honestly. I want to slip it in my pocket, just because I can.
Anyway, this is a case where the little thumbnails you see of a cover online do not do the book justice in any way. It's simply scrummy in the flesh, and I hope that lots of people notice this and pick it off the bookshelves of their local shop come November. Lucky for me, the book's already had two lovely reviews, one of which was featured in the Publisher's Weekly Children's Bookshelf Newsletter (and I had no idea until it popped into my inbox and I was reading it as normal and suddenly there was my book staring out at me, leading to much flailing and squeaking at Casa Marriott).
In the meantime, I'd like to ask a favour of any Dear Readers who have a few spare moments: if you've written a review of Book Two of the Trilogy: Darkness Hidden for your blog or your Goodreads, or you were thinking of doing so? The Amazon page for this book is looking a bit sparse in terms of reviews. It's got four absolute stonking ones, which I'm very grateful for - don't get me wrong! - but since the first book has over twenty it kind of looks like no one is reading the next in the series which isn't the impression I was hoping the book would make, you know?
However, there's no pressure to do this, and I'm not guilt-tripping anyone who doesn't want to or doesn't have the time, so feel free to ignore my neediness, oh delightful chickadees. I love you all regardless! *Mwah*
4 comments:
DAMN that is a sexy book. And I wrote that comment in my brain before I read the post and the 'sexeh' description, so the evidence for the book's sexiness is: conclusive.
I KNOW RIGHT. I have been stroking it possessively. My own. My precious...
I did enjoy this book very much, but rather enjoyed the UK covers. Perhaps the US version is different in person, but I was disappointed that it lacked the action and magical qualities that the UK covers (all three!) have. Will just have to put more effort into getting students to read a great book, that's all!
Ms Yingling: Thank you - I'm glad that you liked it. I'm thinking that you probably had an ARC of the US version, and the ARC doesn't have any of the pretty foiling effects like the finished version does, which does make a difference. But I agree that the UK covers have more of a sense of drama and movement. I hope your students can be persuaded anyway!
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