BIG NEWS! New Books by Some Old Favorites

If you haven’t been on the internet lately, you may be one of the three people on the planet who haven’t heard  about J. K. Rowling’s latest.  The Casual Vacancy, her first novel for adults, will be published by Rowling’s new publisher Little, Brown on September 27, 2012. Obviously the cover design has not yet been revealed, but Little, Brown gives us a preview of the plot below:

Plot details and pricing were also included in Little, Brown’s release about the novel, which it described as “blackly comic.” The book is set in a small English town called Pagford, which comes undone after one of its denizens, a man in his early 40s named Barry Fairweather, unexpectedly dies. The event shakes the town and reveals the rampant unrest bubbling under the surface in the deceptively perfect hamlet. LB elaborated: “Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…. Pagford is not what it first seems.”

The publisher also reveals that the list price will be $35.  This tells me it’s going to be a long book, I’m guessing somewhere in the 700-800 page range, if not more.  I’m looking forward to seeing where Rowling goes post-Harry with her imagination…

In other Big News, Stephen King has two new books on the horizon. He’s working on a novel called Joyland, which takes place in an amusement park and features murderous clowns. Joyland is in the editing stage and does not yet have a release date…and get ready for a King’s sequel to The Shining entitled Dr. Sleep, in which a grown-up Danny Torrance is a hospice worker who encounters a clan of psychic vampires.  Wow! Dr. Sleep is due for publication sometime next year.

And finally, one of my favorite YA authors has a new series coming out later this year. Maggie Stiefvater, author of the bestselling Shiver trilogy, kicks off her latest series of four books with The Raven Boys. Here’s the description from Goodreads:

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

You can read the first two chapters of The Raven Boys here!

The Raven Boys comes out September 18, 2012.