Rachel Caine's Visit to the UK

The inimitable Rachel Caine, author of the Weather Warden Series and the Morganville Vampire Series will be in the UK to promote her Morganville books and to attend some book signings. This is a tiny bit of an exclusive as I don't think these dates have appeared on Rachel's site, as yet, but these dates I received from her number one group of fans over at her publishers, Allison and Busby so unless something goes awry at the last minute, these dates are 99.99% correct. Also, check out the link to A&B's site - they are offering some of the Morganville books up for grabs. What a way to start your Wednesday morning!

Tuesday 19th

5 – 6pm Talk, Q&A & Booksigning
Waterstone’s, Boston
18 Pescod Square, Wide Bargate, Boston PE21 6QX.
Tel: 01205 360002

Thursday 21st

6.30pm Talk, Q&A and Book signing a
Borders, Stockport
Peel Retail Park, Great Portwood Street, Stockport, SK1 2HH
Tel: 0161 476 3392

Friday 22nd

3.30 – 5pm Talk, Q&A and Book signing
Waterstone’s, Lancaster
4-6 Corn Market, Marketgate Shopping Centre, Lancaster, LA1 1AL. Tel: 01524 842561

Saturday 23rd (two signings on the same day)

11am – 1.30pm Book Signing
Waterstone’s, Bluewater
Bluewater Shopping Centre, Greenhithe, Kent DA9 9ST
Tel: 01322 624 831

3.30 – 4.30pm Book signing
Waterstone’s, Camden
128 Camden High Street, NW1 7JR
Tel: 020 7284 4948

**Allison and Busby - Revamped Site**

I am in lust. With the new Allison and Busby site.

It's been updated, reworked and rejigged and it looks really good!

It looks to me (she says slowly, browsing the site, whilst typing this) like there is a bit for everyone. For the reader and book club gurus there is a bookclub tab with suggestions, for the writer, there is a Writer's Corner with links to events and competitions, as well as a blog and the all important newsletter.

It looks like I will be spending some time there, whiling my time away. It is a hard life, I swear!

As a reminder, Allison and Busby will be bringing us Rachel Caine in a few months' time - which is going to be faintingly fantastic.

Happy browsing!

Dead Girls' Dance by Rachel Caine

Synopsis:

Welcome to Morganville. Just don`t stay out after dark...

Claire has her share of challenges. Like being a genius in a school that favours beauty over brains; homicidal girls in her dorm, and finding out that her college town is overrun with the living dead. On the up side, she has a new boyfriend with a vampire-hunting dad. But when a local fraternity throws the Dead Girls` Dance, hell is really going to break loose.

The second book in Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampire series, Dead Girls' Dance picks up exactly where Glass Houses left off.

First off, this is not a comfortable book. It is much darker than the first - there are repurcussions to the happenings in the first novel and now Claire and her friends have to deal with a nasty situation - Michael has been killed by Shane's dad and his biker buddies, and things are pretty dire. Shane is helpless against his dad's anger and struggles to try and cope with his loyalty to his dad and his growing feelings for Claire whilst Eve is completely dumbstruck by the horror of watching Michael die infront of them.

This is just the first few pages of the book. And the pace keeps increasing. The friends have to figure out how to continue their lives whilst living under a microscope - everyone is watching them. The vampires, the humans and Shane's dad and his insane friends. Out of all of these, it is the humans that are the most dangerous - which makes and interesting twist on matters.

I found the book a quick and easy read - I'm not going into depth as to what happens, but needless to say, there are some heavy choices to be made by Claire, Shane, Eve and Michael. I had to keep on reading, to see how it evolves - there was no question of that. Ms. Caine's writing is just excellent - her characters are distinct, the two boys sound lovely and there are enough twists and turns to keep anyone happy.

I have the next two books lined up to read and will do so soon. I'll probably then do a comprehensive review of this series thus far.

Friday 13th = Rachel Caine Loving!

Bio:

Rachel Caine is the author of more than fifteen novels, including the Weather Warden series. She was born in White Sands Missile Range, which people who know her say explains a lot. She has been an accountant, a professional musician, and an insurance investigator, and still carries on a secret indentity in the corporate world. She and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas with their iguanas, Pop-eye and Darwin, a mali uromastyx named (appropriately) O`Malley, and a leopard tortoise names Shelley (for the poet of course).

Cool fact number 1:

Rachel's newest addition to her Morganville Vampire books for the YA market is released today in the UK - Friday 13th, which you have to admit, is super cool of her publishers Allison and Busby - and the newest novel is called Feast of Fools.

In the town of Morganville, vampires and humans live in relative peace. Student Claire Danvers has never been convinced, though, especially with the arrival of Mr. Bishop, an ancient, old-school vampire who cares nothing about harmony. What he wants from the town’s living and its dead is unthinkably sinister. It’s only at a formal ball, attended by vampires and their human dates, that Claire realizes the elaborately evil trap he’s set for Morganville.

The fun thing about the UK covers: they glow in the dark. Which I think makes them good fun to own.

The other novels thus far are:

1. Glass Houses (reviewed here)
2. Dead Girl's Dance (soon to be reviewed)
3. Midnight Alley
4. Feast of Fools

Second Cool Fact:

If all goes to plan, Rachel will be visiting the UK in the latter part of May '09. There will be signings, there will also be interviews, competitions and freebies in the form of transferable tatoos and bracelets. Things need to be agreed still but it looks like I may get the opportunity to interview Rachel - and we'll be able to run a competition on MFB. All of this depends on her actual schedule whilst she's here - so hold thumbs for shiny goodies to be had.

Glass Houses, Rachel Caine

Synopsis

Welcome to Morganville. Just don`t stay out after dark...

College freshman Claire Danvers has had enough of her nightmarish dorm situation, where the popular girls never let her forget just where she ranks in the school`s social scene: somewhere less than zero.

When Claire heads off-campus, the imposing old house where she finds a room may not be much better. Her new roommates don`t show many signs of life, but they come out fighting when the town`s deepest secrets come crawling out, hungry for fresh blood…

Morganville sounds like the back of beyond – and I bet you, you’ll read this and recognise bits of some crummy town close to where you live. Which makes this novel even more creepy!

Claire Danvers, the main character in Glass Houses, is a refreshing breeze of clumsy geekness. She’s just a normal girl, highly intelligent, having finished high school early, which is why at the age of almost seventeen she’s started college. Her parents, thinking that they were doing a good thing, decided to to send her to Morganville to go to college as it was the closest one – they weren’t prepared to send her off to some of the more illustrious schools, further away. For her own good of course. Because she is too young to make it on her own.

She runs foul of Monica and the Monickettes in her dorm and at the college. Beaten, thrown down some stairs and with very little clothes to her name, she sets off to sort things out. She decides that the best way to survive is to find off campus accommodation. She stumbles across Glass House which is beautifully described as a cross between a mansion from Gone with the Wind and The Munsters.

The residents of Glass House – Eve, Goth chick and sweetie at heart, Shane, layabout, hottie who is fiercely loyal to his best mate, Michael, owner of Glass House, also a hottie and a bit weird in that he sleeps all day and no one is quite sure what he does... - welcome Claire into their tightknit little clan. Eve does the big reveal: vampires are real. They run Morganville – no one is safe after dark. The humans who live in Morganville wear bracelets that show their allegience to a protector...

I genuinely enjoyed reading Glass Houses. I was annoyed when I had to close the book and realised that I should have bought the second one too...you know, just to know what happens next! The characters are fresh and fun, Claire is stubborn – I can picture her perfectly, one of those quiet unassuming people who you never expect to have such a stubborn streak. Through her we discover how odd Morganville really is and the descriptions, as I mentioned earlier, really do hit you in an uncomfortable place because you know there are places like this in real life – where the street lights are a bit too far apart, where the shops are just a a bit too run down, where people seem more introverted and suspicious of strangers than is healthy. I loved how Ms. Caine used the setting, very Stephen King-like, to create such a strong sense of unease.

This is a cracking good read aimed at the urban fantasy young adult market. I am sure, however, that everyone who’s read Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden series would enjoy reading this. It keeps the vampire genre fresh and fun because the lore is being re-invented and re-worked. Although there are elements of romance (how can there not be with two such lovely sounding hotties) it does not turn into anything remotely obsessive or weird, which seems to be the way a lot of other YA novels are going. It is kept light and sexy, with no scenes I would be uncomfortable to read out loud to a class of pupils and parents.

Highly recommended, especially if you buy the UK covers as they glow in the dark! Published in the UK by Allison and Busby.