Tag Archives: The Treachery of Beautiful Things

Octocon this weekend

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This weekend is Octocon weekend! The full timetable is here. And general details here.  Liz Williams is GOH and a host of wonderful guests including C.E. Murphy, Celine Kiernan, Oisín McGann, Michael Carroll and me!

This is what I’ll be up to: (busy busy busy)

Saturday

11am Room 101 – putting away all those SFFH tropes

1pm – Realistic Relationships in SFF – What makes for a realistic relationship, and does a different world change what is realistic in a relationship?

3pm – LGBTQ in YA – What is the impact of having LGBTQ characters in Young Adult Books? What are the possible
pitfalls?

4pm – Reading – I’ll be reading from The Treachery of Beautiful Things (and maybe more)

6pm – What does the term strong female character actually mean? – We use the term all the time, but there seems to be a lot of disagreement as to what is and is not a “Strong Female Character”

Sunday 14th

(phew! A lie in)

Noon – Why so violent? – Why do so many stories resort to violence? Surely we can all just get along

1pm – Roots of Irish fantasy – Irish Myths and Legends go back thousands of years, and have been changed by interaction
with the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church has been changed by the Irish people and our myths (I accidentally talked my way into this. Be warned, I have been doing research!)

5pm – Is there space for religion in Science Fiction? – Some see science as being about facts and figures, and believe that science fiction shouldn’t include relgion. We hope to explore these ideas.

I always have an awesome time at Octocon. (And collapse in a heap afterwards). But don’t forget that there is also the Friday night welcome drinks and the Dead Dog party on Monday!

Copies of The Treachery of Beautiful Things, Soul Fire, The Scroll Thief and Songs of the Wolf will be available in the Dealers room.

Come and say hello if you’re there. And come to the reading so I’m not talking to an empty room! Pleeeeeeease!

Titancon & the Giant’s Causeway

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I’m a little late writing this one up for a number of reasons, but they basically boil down to lots to do and no energy to do it with. Plus finishing my WiP, the Space Opera. Well, now that has gone off to my wonderful critters, I can’t put blogging off any more, can I?

Titancon was fantastic fun. So well run and entertaining for all of us. We had a ball. One of the really awesome thing was that Leigh Bardugo (author of SHADOW AND BONE) and Joanna Volpe from New Leaf Literary were there and we got to hang out. I have photos, which are all slightly wobbly as my camera decided to play up.

So first, on Friday night, we had readings in McHughs as part of Culture Night Belfast
Ruth reading from The Treachery of Beautiful ThingsLeigh reading from Shadow and Bone

Titancon was Saturday. We had panels on Romance in SFF, on becoming a professional author, on working in the Internet age. We met people from the TV show, A Game of Thrones. We had lots of fun and a lovely lunch.

Ruth and LeighPeadar Ó Guilín, Ruth and Leigh

Some of the encounters were pretty action packed. (that’s why its blurry, honest!)
Water dancing with Syrio Forel (Miltos Yerolemou)

Many thanks to Miltos and Johannah!

A great day was had by all. And here is a wobbly picture of Joanna, Leigh and myself with the Game of Thrones banners.
Joanna, Leigh, Ruth

We stayed for the Masquerade, which was fab and then the next day we decided to go to the Giant’s Causeway, little knowing we would be stalked by the Game of Thrones bus tour!

The Causeway was fantastic. I’ve never been before and always wanted to. Here’s a slideshow of some of my photos (my camera suspiciously decided to cooperate once the con was over!)

 

The Treachery of Beautiful Things booklaunch

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What a wonderful night. With photos to prove it…

Look at my pretty book! Look at all the pretty books!

Having spent the two previous days getting apologies from those who couldn’t make it (with perfectly valid reasons of course), with a major concert on in Dublin, the Junior Cert exam results out that day, and traffic chaos, I was expecting no one to make it but we had a great turnout in the end. Yay! I didn’t get to talk to everyone, nor as much as I would have liked to but it was fantastic to see so many people, new friends and old. (Yes, I got into trouble for mentioning my “oldest” friends — I think I am forgiven now, barely. “The people with whom I have been friends the longest” isn’t quite so snappy though.)

Bob from The Gutter Bookshop introduced us,and Celine Kiernan spoke so kindly about The Treachery of Beautiful Things.

The wonderful Celine Kiernan

And I thanked … well everyone in the world really, virtual, imaginary, and real.

Speechifying

But eventually I shut up again and we had cake.

Did I mention the cake? 😀

Oh yes, there was cake

I didn’t actually get any cake because I was signing books

Signing books

but I’m told people enjoyed it and the hoard of small children surrounding the table earned themselves the nickname “The Cookie Monsters”.

And then it was time to go home. Thanks so much to everyone who was able to make it, who sent good wishes and celebrated online. I had a fabulous evening. I hope you did too!

Ruth and Celine – see how much fun I’m having?

Next up, it’s Titancon, from the 21st of September, in Belfast. I’ll be on the literary panels, and signing books. Check out those guests! Can’t wait!

The Treachery of Beautiful Things is now available, from Dial Books at

Indiebound |  Book Depository | Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk | Barnes & Noble | Powells

and at your local bookshop.

eta: I forgot to add – The Treachery of Beautiful Things got a STARRED REVIEW in the ALA Booklist – their review is here.

Out in the wild – Book Launch imminent

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In the wild…

The countdown is on to the book launch. My brain has switched into its usual stress management mode – BAKE ALL THE THINGS!

Venue: The Gutter Bookshop
Date: Wednesday 12th September – 6.30pm until 8pm

Free and Everyone welcome. Encouraged even.

There will be cake. Just saying.

The book will be launched by the wonderful and talented, not to mention award winning Celine Kiernan.

There should be photos (if I charge my camera and find a photographer). And there might be wine. (*ahem*)

So come one, come all to the Gutter Bookshop tomorrow evening and see what happens.

~~oO0~~

The Treachery of Beautiful Things

by Ruth Frances Long

Now available:

Indiebound |  Book Depository | Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk | Barnes & Noble | Powells

and your local bookshop!!!

Launch Day – The Treachery of Beautiful Things

New Books, New releases, Publications

And what a wonderful day it has been so far.

All the lovely wishes, the people saying hello and congrats, friends and strangers, and the photos people have been sending of the book appearing on their eReaders!

I’m so happy that we’re here, and that Treachery (which was once just May Queen) is out in the world. So thank you to everyone who helped — friends, crit partners, gnats, agents, editors, everyone. You’ve all been amazing.

Now available:

Indiebound |  Book Depository | Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk | Barnes & Noble | Powells

and from your local bookseller

Inspirations for The Treachery of Beautiful Things – Author Video 3

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Oh my goodness – only one more day to go. How fabulous! It’s so exciting. Tomorrow is the Book Birthday!

This week we’ve had: an interview with me at Xpresso Reads, a wonderful Dream Cast at Book Me! and a guestpost from me about some of the things that went into writing The Treachery of Beautiful Things at Nick’s Book Blog.

It’s the last day of the The Itching For Books Blog Tour but there are still a few coming up over the next few days, so keep your eyes pealed!

Thanks to the joy of Irish weather (which went from unpredictable to biblical today) the last video was filmed entirely indoors but as its about the Ridgeway, the Uffington White Horse and Wayland’s Smithy, that didn’t really matter. Last year while researching The Treachery of Beautiful Things I took a trip to the Ridgeway, so there’s lots of pictures taken there. And it was lovely and sunny!

I hope you’ve enjoyed the videos, the glimpses of some of the inspiration of this book and I hope you’ll enjoy The Treachery of Beautiful Things. It can be bought everywhere from tomorrow (and in a couple of places already) or it can be ordered from (among other places) …

Indiebound |  Book Depository | Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk | Barnes & Noble | Powells

Inspirations for The Treachery of Beautiful Things – Author Video 2

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It’s the 10th. And oh my goodness have we been having fun this week. Mars, Katie Taylor, and my friend Maria Duffy’s booklaunch for The Terrace!

The booklaunch was a hoot, and something like a wedding in that people kept saying “It’ll be you next!”

The Itching For Books Blog Tour is ongoing, with some great posts about Treachery, including an interview with me AND an Interview with Jack himself (*swoon* — am I allowed to swoon over my own characters or is that weird?) and today apparently a Dream Cast. Really looking forward to that.

I also got a lovely review today from our Last ARC winner Jeanmarie. And please remember to enter the Story Siren giveaway, and watch the lovely Booktrailer.

And as promised, here is the second of my author videos, this time talking about the Greenman. I’ve always loved the Greenman figure and here’s why. Also this is filmed inside the house because the Irish weather decided it was through cooperating with us (such as it was). So we prepared everything, got ready to film and the sun came out. It looks nice, but it wasn’t a few minutes later. Ah Irish weather, we’re not even going to try…

Inspirations for The Treachery of Beautiful Things – Author Video 1

Author video, Blogtour, Booktrailer, competition, Interviews, links and stuff, New Books, New releases, ,

so in the run up to the launch of The Treachery of Beautiful Things on the 16th August, there’s a lot going on all over the webs, or so it seems. Not least here where I’ve been making author videos explaining some of the inspirations behind the story. The first one is here today – The Enchanted Forest. I shall just hide now as I am on there talking and being Irish I find such recordings of my ramblings mortifying! And yet I still do it.

There will be two more (unless I’m asked to make more – if you’ve any questions let me know) – one on The Greenman (Friday 10th) and one on The Ridgeway and Wayland’s Smithy (Wednesday 15th). They still have to be finished as the Irish weather has not been cooperating. In fact they will probably be filmed indoors at this rate. But this one was made on the last day of summer (or so it seems) although it got a bit windy in places so bear with me.

Oh look, the sun has just come out here. Careful, it may be a trap…

 

—

Just to remind everyone that the booktrailer went live on The Story Siren‘s website yesterday along with a giveaway. It’s now up here as well on my Treachery page. It’ll pop up soon on the Treachery of Beautiful Things facebook page and my Tumblr soon (sheesh, I’ll have to go through this post and link everything!)

It’s day 2 of the Itching for Books blog tour with an interview at The Library Mouse and a review at Claire Reads. There are giveaways at all those sites, and at the ones from yesterday as well so go check them out.

 

Booktrailers, blog tour & competitions – 10 days to go!

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So much going on today in all areas of life. We woke up to watch the Mars Curiosity landing, we’re watching Katie Taylor in the Olympics as I type (so I may be distracted) and its 9 days until The Treachery of Beautiful Things comes out.

Everything kicks off today, it seems. And it’s so exciting. So here we go…

The Booktrailer is up on The Story Siren so go and have a look at the awesomeness that @Ickle_tayto made, staring Laura Jane Cassidy as Jenny. We has such fun filming it before we went off for our writers’ weekend and it turned out wonderful. Most of the photos are mine, with a few from Dreamstime.com. The music is from Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech.com. The full credits are visible on the Youtube page. I’ll be putting it up on the site tomorrow. Also on The Story Siren, you can enter to win one of two copies of the finished version of the book. So check it out, comment and enter.

Also kicking off today is the Blog Tour with Itching for Books. I’m so excited about this one as I’ve never done anything on this scale before. First up is a review from Nothing Better Than Books and another chance to win a copy. And another from Auntie Spinelli Reads. So many ways to win!

And finally… we’ve been putting together a short series of author videos to introduce the world of The Treachery of Beautiful Things.  The first of is coming up tomorrow. So stay tuned…

Meet Jack & competition

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Who doesn’t dream of meeting a hero?

Jack is over on the Dark Faerie Tales site today as part of Fifty Shades of YA Boys – their last guest. (Saving the best until last, naturally!) We caught him in a less surly mood. So pop over and see what Mr Grumpy has to say for himself.

There will be a number of blog posts and interviews coming up as we ramp up to the launch of Treachery on the 16th and I’m also doing some author videos so you can laugh at my discomfort…  see me. Talking and stuff. About Forests, and Greenmen and the Ridgeway. Or something. Um…

So stay tuned.

Especially for the blogtour with Shane at Itching for Books –