Tag Archives: The Treachery of Beautiful Things

Last ARC competition Winner

competition

Look what we found while out walking in the woods yesterday. Half a greenman mask perhaps? It must be a SIGN.

Da dah Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

*drumroll*

The winner of the Last ARC and all its associated swag (as selected by 10yo & 7yo by virtue of lots of numbers written on pieces of paper & sleected at random) is…

Jeanmarie Anaya

The Greenman is either trying to tell you he needs a haircut (rather, a pruning, to be more precise), OR he’s trying to tell you his head is on backwards and he needs a shave. Either way, there’s pruning required.

Congratulations. There will be an email on the way to you in just a moment.

Thanks so much for entering everyone. Sorry about the shaky start but if you all will try to reach my poor website at the same time, no wonder it got panic and ran away to hide!

It’s less than a month to go.

Tomorrow I am off to Prague for that library conference, including a tour of Strahov Monastery & library which is very exciting. I will be taking lots of pics and maybe some video if I can get that to work. Talk soon.


Haste to the Wedding – a music post

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One of the recurring themes in The Treachery of Beautiful Things is the traditional tune “Haste to the Wedding”. It is the tune with which Tom first wakes the trees, and the tune which lures Jenny into the Realm seven years later.

This is one of my favourite versions of it, as it captures all the different nuances in this piece of music.  The introduction, played by Sharon Corr is simply beautiful, while the main tune, Part 2 (as used in the book), kicks off about the 3.33 minute mark and is builds in life an energy as the music turns from traditional to modern (and Mick Fleetwood joins in on drums). If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, listen to that. But you’ll be missing out.

Enjoy!

I’m so glad Warner music has this on Youtube so I can share it with you.

100 days to go – ARC giveaway!

competition, New Books, New releases,

Woo-HOO!You may have noticed the sparkly loveliness in my sidebar, counting down until the 16th of August, 2012.

This is because it is now 100 days until The Treachery of Beautiful Things launches in the US.  *Throws confetti*

To celebrate, it’s giveaway time. To win one of the last ARCs I have, leave a comment below telling me something beautiful and something treacherous. The winner will be picked in an extremely subjective manner — maybe by asking a kid, maybe by asking the Patchwork Cat, maybe by selecting random number.

Remember you can find out more about Treachery and read an exclusive preview on this site.

It’s available for pre-order in all these shiny places –

Indiebound |  Book Depository | Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk | Barnes & Noble | Powells

 

Please spread the word, tell your friends, RT, Tumbl (is that a word? It is NOW) and let’s make this as much fun as possible. The competition is open from now until the 15th May 2012, a whole week. Remember, one post each – something beautiful and something treacherous. It can even be both.

___

fireworks by Dreamstime.com

The (Not) May Day post

Guestblogging, links and stuff, , ,

So right, well, due to matters beyond my control… well actually due to responsibilities which I can’t ignore and the massive headache that followed it… I didn’t manage to blog yesterday, which is annoying because I totally meant to.

Because *drumroll* *taa-dah*

yesterday was May Day.

 

That would have been so much more effective yesterday when it was “today is May Day”, you see? But never mind.

 

The reason May Day is important (not just because it’s what I frequently shout. Ok, when I’m in trouble in France anyway) is that The Treachery of Beautiful Things is in part based on the legends and folklore surrounding May Day. It is the first day of summer here in Ireland (notable this year for the pheNOMinal ammount of rain we got). It’s Bealtine, one of the quarter days when the veils between worlds become thin enough to let things slip through. It’s a time of magic.

Alright I never actually got around to writing the blog post, but luckily for me The History Girls had a fantastic one written by Mary Hoffman, so I am totally linking to that. 😀 It even has a lovely picture of the May Tree, aka the hawthorn.

The hawthorn we planted in the garden is doing well by the way. It has little buds. So pretty! Next year we’ll have pictures of it, I promise. At the moment… it’s a stick with some little green buds on it, so not that interesting.

Today (NOT May Day) I’m over at the Australian blog Treasured Tales for Young Adults celebrating its Blogoversary, and talking about Jenny from The Treachery of Beautiful Things. I love Jenny. She’s a complicated girl, who learns and grows over the course of the book, growing into herself as a confident and self-assured young woman by the end of the story. I like characters who develop over the course of a book, rather than being the same the whole way through and I think Jenny shows this. Anyway, see for yourself what I had to say.

And finally, here is my May Day song (late) which is one of the most important songs from my Treachery Playlist – Rabbit Heart (Raise it up) by Florence + the Machine. (I can’t embed it, so follow the link to YouTube).

 

Hurray for news! Bigger Hurray for Competitions!!!

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This is another quick blog update but with some super news.

I’m going to be a guest at TitanCon in Belfast in September. I’ll be reading on the evening of the 21st September in McHugh’s and I’ll be at the con all day on Saturday 22nd. Anyone there, please come and say hi!

Also up today is a guest post I wrote for Tangled Up in Words and their Why I Write segment.  It almost sounds sane. Well, sane-ish. Maybe. But most importantly the Tangled Authors are have a massive giveaway which is open for about 3 more days and includes, among many other shiny & spectacular things, one of those elusive ARCs of The Treachery of Beautiful Things. Go and enter! While you’re there maybe leave a comment for me, pretty please?

Psst wanna win an ARC of The Treachery of Beautiful Things?

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I’ve a guestpost up on The Book Pushers today, as part of their Fantasy Appreciation Week, on fairytales in modern fantasy — Fairytales in a modern dress. And if that’s not lure enough… oh all right, you can enter to win an author review copy of The Treachery of Beautiful Things!

The giveaway ends on 13th April, and it’s open internationally.