My Books

"If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't

been written yet, then you must write it."

-Toni Morrison

Graceling, my debut novel, is the story of Katsa, who has been able to kill people with her bare hands since she was eight. Katsa lives in the seven kingdoms, where very occasionally, a person is born with an extreme skill called a Grace. Gracelings are feared and exploited in the seven kingdoms, and none moreso than Katsa, who's expected to do the dirty work of torture and punishment for her uncle, King Randa. But then she meets a mysterious stranger named Po, who is also a Graced fighter and the first person ever to challenge her in a fight. The two form a bond, and each discovers truths they never imagined about themselves, each other, and a terrible danger that is spreading slowly through the seven kingdoms.

Graceling is published by Harcourt Children's Books in the U.S. and Canada, by Gollancz in the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, and has been sold to seventeen foreign markets so far. It's gotten starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publisher's Weekly, School Library Journal, and Booklist, not to mention a very kind review in the New York Times (beware some serious spoilers in that review!). It's an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and an Indies Choice Book Awards Honor Book; it was also a finalist for the ALA's new Morris Award, the SFWA's Andre Norton Award, the SIBA Book Awards, the Cybils, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature. It's made the following lists: Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year; School Library Journal's Best Books of 2008; Amazon.com's Best Books of 2008; the Winter 2009 Indie Next Kid's List; Booklist's 2008 Top Ten First Novels for Youth; and the 2009 Amelia Bloomer List. You can read some review excerpts here.

You can buy Graceling online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Even better, please support your local independent bookstore or go to Indie Bound or Powells! Or, if you'd like a signed copy, please contact my local bookstore, The Bookmark, by calling (904) 241-9026, emailing bkmark--at--bellsouth.net, or visiting in person at 299 Atlantic Boulevard, Atlantic Beach, FL 32233. (But do call ahead to make sure they have it on hand!)

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Fire, Graceling's prequel-ish companion book, takes place across the mountains to the east of the seven kingdoms, in a rocky, war-torn land called the Dells.

Beautiful creatures called monsters live in the Dells. Monsters have the shape of normal animals: mountain lions, dragonflies, horses, fish. But the hair or scales or feathers of monsters are gorgeously colored-- fuchsia, turquoise, sparkly bronze, iridescent green-- and their minds have the power to control the minds of humans.

Seventeen-year-old Fire is the last remaining human-shaped monster in the Dells. Gorgeously monstrous in body and mind but with a human appreciation of right and wrong, she is hated and mistrusted by just about everyone, and this book is her story.

Wondering what makes it a companion book/prequel? Fire takes place 30-some years before Graceling and has one cross-over character with Graceling, a small boy with strange two-colored eyes who comes from no-one-knows-where, and who has a peculiar ability that Graceling readers will find familiar and disturbing...

Fire comes out in October 2009 from Dial Books for Young Readers (in the U.S. and Canada) and Gollancz (in the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand), and its list of foreign publishers is growing. Please note that the Dial cover shown above (the red one) is the cover for the ARC and may change with the final book.

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Book 3, tentatively titled Bitterblue and currently in progress, is a companion book to both Graceling and Fire and takes place in the seven kingdoms six years after Graceling. As you may have gathered, the protagonist is Bitterblue. Yes, Katsa, Po, and others from Graceling whom I'm not yet willing to name do appear in the book. :o) I don't know yet when it'll be coming out. That's all I can say about it at this point.

EDIT 3/9/09: If you notice on Amazon that Bitterblue is cancelled, don't worry! The Harcourt edition is cancelled, but only because the book has moved to Penguin. Once Bitterblue is written, it'll be published by the Penguin imprint Dial Books for Young Readers.