The Crocodile Tomb cover and synopsis!

Now if you've been around the last few years you will know that I am OBSESSED with Michelle Paver. I adored her Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series! So much so that I got a tattoo inspired by the books! And I am equally loving her current series, Gods and Warriors, and it hardly seems real to say this, but the fourth and penultimate instalment comes out in August and I cannot wait to read it!

Well, now we have the cover art and the synopsis to whet our appetites and boy oh boy does this sound like a corker!

"A country at the edge of the world. A hidden tomb. A buried secret. Hylas and Pirra have found their way to the mysterious land of Egypt in pursuit of the dagger of Koronos, only to find that the Crows have got there first. Led by Hylas's deadly enemy, Telamon, they are determined to recover the legendary blade, by any means necessary. But the dagger now lies buried beyond the reach of mortals. If Hylas and Pirra want it back, they will have to make the most dangerous journey of all - into the realms of death itself . . ."

Wow! I am so excited to see how Hylas and Pirra react to Ancient Egypt and how things continue! With only 1 more book after The Crocodile Tomb it's an exciting time to be a Michelle Paver fan as she knows how to wrap a series up incredibly well and I cannot wait to see how this one fares! Roll on 6th August!

The Eye of the Falcon by Michelle Paver [Review]

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS THE THIRD BOOK IN THE GODS AND WARRIORS SERIES, SO IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE FIRST TWO BOOKS, THE OUTSIDERS AND THE BURNING SHADOW, THEN PLEASE BEWARE THE SPOILERS!!! THANK YOU!

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Written by: Michelle Paver.

Published by: Puffin.

Format: Paperback.

Released: 7th August 2014.

Rating: 5/5.

Official synopsis: "Winter has been colder than anyone can remember, and there is no spring. The eruption of Thalakrea has shrouded the sky in ash, and blotted out the Sun. Fate brings Hylas to the island of Keftiu. He is desperate to find his friends: Pirra, the daughter of the High Priestess, and Havoc the lion cub. But Keftiu has suffered more than anywhere from the fury of the gods, and the once-prosperous island has been ravaged by cold, famine and plague. As Hylas sets off alone to seek his friends, he is tormented by the fear that Pirra and Havoc may not have survived the winter..."

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Oh boy! It's that time of the year again! No, not Christmas... It's time for my annual Michelle Paver gushfest! In the words of Bing Crosby it most definitely is the most wonderful time of the year. For me, anyway! Year after year, Michelle never fails to amaze me, shock me, draw me into a world so incredibly different from the world that we live in today that I cannot help but fall in love. I've been a mega fan, as you will know if you've been around since my blog began, of Michelle ever since I first picked up Wolf Brother, the first book in the epic Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series! Ten whole years! But more about that in a few weeks! ;)... Ever since I picked up Wolf Brother Michelle has been a huge part of my life as those books came at quite a dark time in my life and helped me through some quite difficult times. Maybe that's why I have such an affinity with Michelle and her work...

But back to present day where The Eye of Falcon, the third book in the stunning Gods and Warriors series has just been published... Oh, be still my beating heart. She's done it again! This series is shaping up to be something pretty damn special and this instalment only solidifies that. After the explosive (literally) conclusion of the last book, The Burning Shadow, Hylas is alone on Keftiu. The world has changed and not for the better. The sun has gone. The land is dying and so are the people and this winter has been the worst known for years. And the gods are angry. The gods have left Keftiu, a forsaken land, but Hylas must seek Pirra, he needs to make amends. And he needs to find the dagger of Koronos soon or else no one will ever be safe.

As per the usual, Michelle's writing is so fluid and elegant, so silky. Her prose almost feel like a warm hug, enveloping you, dragging you deeper down into the story. It's so hard to remove your eyes from the page, in fact sometimes it's nigh on impossible! The characters are so well fleshed out and no one seems to be there just for the sake of it, they all have their own purpose. Including Echo, the falcon. That's one thing I love about Michelle's books. The animal element she incorporates. It's so fresh and so well written that you almost feel as if you are in the animals head, experiencing it's thoughts. She doesn't make them feel human, they feel raw, wild, animalistic. It's so captivating, and now, seeing parts of the story through both the falcon's eyes and those of Havoc, the lion cub, adds an extra dimension to the story. This is something Michelle did so well in the Chronicles, with Wolf, the wolf... and with Spirit the dolphin in the first Gods and Warriors book. It's just so cool!

The stakes are getting higher and this makes for a very exciting read. There are only two more books to come in this series and I cannot wait to see how it ends. Next years instalment, The Crocodile Tomb, cannot come quick enough! Next time we're off to Egypt and given Michelle's talent for bring ancient worlds to life I cannot wait to see her take on ancient Egyptian life. In fact I am so excited it's unreal! The only gripe I had, albeit a minor one, is the death of a major character that happened in between The Burning Shadow and The Eye of the Falcon. It felt a bit brushed over, and I would of liked to see something quite dramatic happen to the character, but other than that I couldn't love this book more if I tried!

One major gripe though, and this isn't towards Michelle and the content of the book... It's to the publisher! I've long vented my fury about cover changes, as I did when they changed the style of the covers in between book one and two of this series... I was livid... But this is worse... They've changed the format! The format! Books one and two were published in beautiful hardbacks with stunning coloured edges, then for some reason with The Eye of the Falcon, they've gone straight to paperback... Now, this is okay because I do have the first two books in paperback as well, and all three covers match... But now I have two obsolete copies, beautiful hardbacks that alluded to a lovely collection and now that has been taken away from me. To say I was gutted when I found out the book wasn't being published in hardback was an understatement. My OCD doesn't allow for format changes and it drove me insane! There is a hardback being released in America next year, but it's a different size so it isn't gone to match the copies I've got so that upsets me a bit! Like I say, it's the only real problem I have about this book... the format change! I just don't get it... I really don't!

But to end on a positive note, because a book of this calibre is nothing but epic, please please please, I beg you, check out this series and check out Michelle's work in general. It's so rich and immersive, I guarantee you will fall in love just as much I have!

Buy from Amazon UK

The Burning Shadow by Michelle Paver [Review]

Written by: Michelle Paver.

Published by: Puffin.

Format: Hardback.

Released: 1st August 2013.

Rating: 5/5.

Official synopsis: "'If an Outsider wields the blade, the House of Koronos burns...' A boy on the run. A deadly prophecy. A race against time. Hylas the Outsider is captured by slavers. Set to work in the terrible underground mines of Thalakrea, he learns to his horror that he's now closer than ever to his murderous enemies, the Crows. He has to escape before they find out he's here. Pirra, the daughter of the High Priestess, is also on the run. When Fate reunites her with Hylas, their survival depends on ancient magic and an orphaned lion cub - unless the Gods have other plans..."

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Ah. What a wonderful day. The arrival of a new Michelle Paver book is always a special event for me. That special day that comes but once a year and it brings with it a sense of wonder, amazement, excitement and a sliver of fear at what might happen next to the characters you're coming to love.

I thoroughly enjoyed Gods and Warriors which was released last year, kick-starting this series of the same name, and I remember saying in my review (which can be found here) that it felt very much a world building book that was setting things out nicely for the series to build upon these foundations and grow, and flourish. And after reading The Burning Shadow, I stand by that comment. We find Hylas trapped - he's a slave, set to work in the copper mines on the side of a mountain in Thalakrea, and he isn't a lone. Hundreds, if not more, are working tirelessly for little or no reward just to appease Kreon, the man who owns them. And to make thing's worse, he's a Crow.

The stakes have risen in The Burning Shadow. Now that some of the Crows know who Hylas is, he risks being caught at every turn. But he's adamant not to get drawn in to the prophecy laid out by the Oracle. He's determined that he'll have no part to play in the bringing down of the House of Koronos. All he wants is to find his sister, Issi, and make sure that she's okay. But the gods themselves have different ideas...

Pirra is also making moves to do what she wants. Her mother, Yassassara, the High Preistess is planning to send her away for good and Pirra is having none of it. She plots a daring escape and when she meets a wise woman called Hekabi she see's a way out. But Hekabi is not what she seems and Pirra is drawn away from Keftiu again into danger, back into the eyesight of the crows, and Hylas.

I don't even know where to begin with my love of this book. I've read Gods and Warriors several times, or The Outsiders as it now known after the paperback re-print..., and I really have come to love Hylas and Pirra. The characters are building, their progression plain to see, none more so than Telamon who... I can't even begin to explain the changes that boy is going through, you need to read it!

So many characters are introduced in this book that it can be a little overwhelming at times. Hekabi. Periphas. Pharax. Alekto. Kreon. So so many, but they're all so well balanced. Some scary. Some not. Some you instantly warm to and some you cannot stand right from the start. But this is needed. It provides a great balance of good and bad. And it's also good to see the return of a character we meet in Book 1, one who I'll be honest I didn't think about until he popped up again - his reappearance however is a good thing because he's an interesting character that I'm looking forward to seeing again and again through the series...

And Havoc! The lion cub. She's rivalling Wolf in Michelle's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness for my favourite fictional animal ever. She's just so beautifully imagined and the way Michelle seems to have gotten in to her head, the way she does for every animal she writes. It's amazing and it adds to the whole magical feel to the story, this kind of mystical edge that makes you tingle. Just so good!

The book, as you'd expect being a Michelle Paver affair, is so well thought out, planned, and so beautifully written that you can't help but become addicted and fly through its 271 pages at breakneck speed. I am loving this world, I'm loving this series and I seriously cannot wait to see what Michelle has in store for us next. The Burning Shadow does an amazing job of taking the foundations laid in Book 1 and building upon them with such grace and thought. I remember seeing a video on her website and on the Puffin Live event she did earlier this year, or maybe it was end of last, I can't remember, where she said Book 3 features a falcon... and we go to Egypt! I cannot wait!

And as with the feeling you get with Christmas, that's it for another year. All that build up and it's gone, so quickly, in the blink of an eye...

Buy The Burning Shadow here...

An Open Letter to Publishers: Cover Changes

Hey guys! So, this is a bit of a different post to my normal stuff on here. This is something which has niggled me, and no doubt most of, or all of, you at some point and personally it annoys me to no end and has done for as long as I can remember. And that is when the look of a series changes mid-way through the series' publication. I would like to point out that this is not a post to attack publishers or to annoy them or to do any other thing than give my own personal opinion, perhaps evoke some discussion and possibly get a reason why. If you agree with anything I have to say, then please do leave a comment - this is something that interests me and peoples opinions on this matter also interest me so I would like to hear what you have to say at least.

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Dear Publishers,

I have been a reader ever since I was very young - and something I have also been since I was very young was a collector. I like to collect a series of books. I like to collect books by certain authors. There are authors that no matter how old I get, no matter how much my tastes differ, I will always read their work because it evokes some kind of magic within me and it's a magic that I love to experience again and again. But something that comes with the territory of being a collector is slight, and sometimes obsessive OCD. It is something that I guess just cannot be helped. It's nice to have a collection that looks nice on the shelf together, or wherever you choose to display your books. But something that makes collecting books a sometimes painful habit is when the look of a series changes. This is something that both enrages and saddens me. I have lost count over recent years where covers have changed for a series either mid-way through, sometimes at the very end, just with the last book and sometimes they've changes several times.

The Lionboy trilogy by Zizou Corder. The look changed just for the final book, The Truth, so my series doesn't match. Vampirates by Justin Somper. The series had a massive over-haul when the fourth book, Black Heart came out. Anthony Horowit'z Alex Rider series. The covers changed slightly for the eighth book, Crocodile Tears - they were somewhat similar but fonts had changed, placements had changed. And then they changed again for the final book, so vastly different that it looks somewhat out of place on my shelf. And now, most recently, one that has niggled me most and inspired this letter is Michelle Paver's Gods and Warriors series.

Gods and Warriors, the first book of the series was published in hardback last August. It had a stunning cover that really excited me and made me want to read the book even more - although because it's by Michelle it was a given that I'd read it anyway - and I just knew that it'd look amazing on my shelf especially when all five books of the series had been released. So cue my excitement when the cover for the second book, The Burning Shadow, popped up online a couple of months ago. It matched the cover for the first book. It had the same kind of feel but it was so colourful and exciting - ooh, the lion cub, the explosion - everything about it made me excited. It fit with the first one and that was important and the wait for the book, due in August continued. 

And then one day I went on Amazon and this happened...

A different cover was showing. What's this? I asked myself. Perhaps this is the one they did before... Hmm... I'll check with Puffin. So I merged the 2 together into one picture and tweeted the publisher asking which one was the one I could expect to see on the hardback and the reply came back saying that it was this new, different cover... Okay... It's not that bad. It's pretty similar to the one they had already posted and yeah, I was probably over-reacting but I was so annoyed and so upset. It looks nothing like the first one. The characters look so much bigger - yeah the colour is still there but it didn't look, to me, as excting as the cover for the book above. And most important of all, it didn't match the cover for the first book. As it is, I am not too disheartened as the paperback for Gods and Warriors is due to sport the same sort of new look and has been re-branded as The Outsiders.

But that doesn't solve my problem that I'm now not going to have a matching set of hardbacks and this saddens me as a collector and as a fan of Michelle Paver. It probably sounds sad, but it's just the way I am and a lot of other people are too. It's nice to have stuff that matches.

As I mentioned in my note before I began this letter, this is not an attack and I am not attacking Puffin in particular, it's just that Gods and Warriors is the most recent example I've seen and one that has a direct affect on me.

I understand that you may want to change the look of a series at some point. Sometimes change is good. Sometimes change makes things better. And sometimes it just makes collectors like me get two or three or even more sets of books. I have The Hunger Games trilogy in multiple sets. The same for the Harry Potter series. It's nice to have a full set that way. But if it were me, and I wanted to change the look of a series, I'd wait till the end of the series. Then the people who have been fans or readers of it from the beginning have a nice neat set that they can re-visit again and again and again for years and years to come. Great! Mission accomplished. A great series read and they look nice too which is a bonus. But as is obvious this doesn't happen some times and it's disheartening. 

I understand that some people just frankly do not care what the book looks like. And I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. It's what is on the pages within the cover that count and I know and appreciate that. But it is also nice for those of us that do have OCD and look forward to the day when we have a series that looks uniform that we are proud to display on our book shelves, mantle tops, tables, desks, anywhere. 

I guess I just want to know why. Why do you do this to us? Why do you torment us so? All we ask is that we get one go at the series without having to fork out more money to get a series that matches - which is something I have done. With Justin Somper's Vampirates books I went out and got the first three in the new cover look just so that my series matches. You want to know they're part of the same whole and the look just adds to this. Just please, spare a thought for the fans, the readers, the collectors. 

Thank you for reading. Again, please understand this isn't an attack. It is a plea. From one book lover to another.

Yours Sincerely

Ryan - Empire of Books

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As I said above guys, any comments or views or anything you want to say at all, please do leave a comment. Thank you.

First look: Cover art for Gods and Warriors 2!!

The release of a new Michelle Paver book is a very very VERY special event in my household, mainly because I demand it to be so. My family hear all about it for weeks, months even, before the release. She is perhaps, as I have said many times before, one of my favourites, if not my ultimate favourite. I just love her and her books. And so imagine my excitement when this pops up... Only the cover for The Burning Shadow, book 2 in her current series, Gods and Warriors... Bit of squeeing to follow....

ARGH! It's bright. It's on fire. And there is a lion cub. Holy cow, can August hurry up already?!?!?! Please!

2013: Books of Interst (Part 3)

Now there are some large gaps in the year where there are books that are making me foam at the mouth... Simply because sometime's books aren't announced that early... I've wracked my brain but towards the end of the year there are fewer titles that I can think of, but here they are regardless.

In AUGUST it's a massive double whammy for me. Two books that are part of two fantastic series that I love! The first is out, at the moment (date may change...) on the 1st. And that would be The Burning Shadow, the second book in the incredible Gods and Warriors by Michelle Paver. No cover yet, if Puffin follow the time scale they did for book one, that should be available from February onwards. No synopsis for the book yet, and we don't know much apart from the title which Michelle herself confirmed a few weeks ago in the latest Clan Cast over on her official website, www.jointheclan.com! Needless to say, I am dying to read this book. I'm a massive fan of Michelle, and she can do no wrong whatsoever in my book!

Then on 29th, another book courtesy of Puffin! At the time of writing this, there's not even a title! Although I have seen a few online, The Return of Lorien popping up the most often, but we'll see! Yep, that's right. The fourth book in the Lorien Legacies series by Pittacus Lore. I love these books. I Am Number Four, The Power of Six and The Rise of Nine. The rumoured title doesn't really follow the pattern of the previous three, but who knows! I just can't wait to see what happens next after that massive cliffhanger at the end of The Rise of Nine! Talk about intense!!

Ooh! And I've just remembered another book out in August! How could I of forgotten! A new book from James Dawson! I adored Hollow Pike when it was released earlier this year and have been waiting with bated breath to see what he'll do next. The answer? Cruel Summer! It sounds fantastic and I can't wait!

"One year after the suicide of one of their friends, the rest of the group decide to spend the summer together in a holiday villa in the Mediterranean. They're hoping to get over the terrible events of the previous year, but then a new guest arrives - claiming to have evidence that the suicide was actually murder. When she is found dead, it becomes clear that the killer must be one of them - but who is it? And will they strike again?

A compelling psychological thriller - with a dash of romance."

Now a book that was originally scheduled for a 2012 release but got pushed back to next year. Trust me, I nearly cried! It's been such a long wait and with another 10 months to go still until the (as yet there's no set date...) OCTOBER release it'll only hurt a bit more! Yes, I'm talking about Angel Fever. The third and final book the Angel trilogy, which started with Angel and continued with Angel Fire, will finally give us all the answer's we've been waiting for! Most importantly, will she choose Seb or Alex? ARGH!!!!?>!"2!!! Seriously, I really cannot wait for this one, and with Lee's recent tweet confirming that she's finally finished the book itself, that it's done, nothing else needs doing, this only makes me even more excited! Fancy just emailing me a PDF, Lee? Hit me up! Haha!

So that concludes the Books of Interest series of posts! What books are you most looking forward to in 2013? Let me know if there are any I've missed you think I should check out. I know that I'll sit back in a bit after I've posted this and think of something and I'll kick myself that it's not on here, but that's part of the excitement I guess. I love not knowing everything that's coming out, then something will come along and just surprise you and make you fall completely and utterly in love!

2012 has been awesome but judging on the books we already know about, I think 2013 is going to be a stellar year for book readers!

I just hope the world isn't going to end today or else we'll never know just how amazing this books will be! Thankfully the world isn't going to end, it's just nonsense! Phew!!