Tansy Rayner Roberts pops in to give us a sneak look at the next book in her delightful Creature Court series.
The Shattered City, Creature Court Book Two
Velody is now the leader of the Creature Court – and struggling to keep her daylight life separate from the nightly battles against the sky. But both worlds are about to collide in a devastating way.
Two young men are murdered, and the Lords and Court turn against each other with grief, anger and accusations. The Duchessa cancels the Sacred Games, and the city of Aufleur stops healing itself after every battle…
Things, in short, get worse. That’s what Book 2 is all about, isn’t it? Things Get Worse. The middle book of a trilogy often gets a bad rap for being ‘padding’ or ‘extraneous’ but I have always loved them best. The middle is when things get really interesting, once you’re fully invested in the characters and their torments, but not yet having to psych yourself up for the grand wrap up. It’s also often the hardest for an author to talk about, because beginnings and endings are so much more glamorous.
Rest assured, in The Shattered City, things get worse. There’s more sex, death and natural disasters than in Book One, and the frocks are prettier. Some things that we thought were gone for good are back with a vengeance. And you have a 100% authorial guarantee that a City. Will. Fall. — Tansy Rayner Roberts
And while we’re looking at some excellent upcoming reading, I’d like to mention Nightsiders by Sue Isles. This is part of Twelfth Planet Press’s Twelve Planet series.
In a future world of extreme climate change, Perth, Western Australia’s capital city, has been abandoned. Most people were evacuated to the East by the late ’30s and organised infrastructure and services have gone.
A few thousand obstinate and independent souls cling to the city and to the southern towns. Living mostly by night to endure the fierce temperatures, they are creating a new culture in defiance of official expectations. A teenage girl stolen from her family as a child; a troupe of street actors who affect their new culture with memories of the old; a boy born into the wrong body; and a teacher who is pushed into the role of guide tell the story of The Nightside.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction by Marianne de Pierres
- The Painted Girl
- Nation of the Night
- Paper Dragons
