News and nice, warm book-loving thoughts

The US trade paperback of THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN is published this month and I'm happy to report that it looks just as gorgeous as the hard cover, only a little lighter in your satchel. You can read the first chapter here or skip straight to the reading group guide, if you prefer. 

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Also, I received this link recently and thought I'd post it here--not because lovely things are being said about my books, though that is also very nice--but because it reminded me of one of my most happy-making, favourite things: that there are other people out there, lots of them, who love reading and writing, and talking about reading and writing, just as much as I do. They love crumbling castles and lost gardens, and secrets and mysteries, and locked doors and old diaries, and being completely enveloped by a made-up world filled with made-up people about whom they come to care deeply. And they love them so much that they set up beautiful stores where the rest of us can go to escape or to browse or to read or just to be surrounded by walls and walls of books, whispering their stories in hopes we might pick them up and become lost inside.

Aside from all that, Nina and Vicki's bookstore has one of the most enticing names of any that I've come across: The Flying Dragon Bookstore. Don't you just want to disappear inside? It's in Toronto, Canada, if you happen to be nearby. All praise to passionate booklovers like these: