New from Walker Canongate

At Walker we love working with like-minded people, and a couple of years ago we partnered up with fellow independent publisher Canongate to create new editions of their titles with beautifully redesigned covers especially for young adults. Perfect books for Undercover.

We launched the partnership with four titles: the internationally bestselling Life of Pi, hot-blooded vampire thriller The Radleys, the magical and macabre collection of tales Pretty Monsters, and unputdownable thriller I'm Not Scared.

The latest two Walker Canongate titles were published this month, and they're definitely worth a read. The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock is an uncompromising debut about the trials of growing up and the dark histories we all harbour, and Carry Me Down by M.J. Hyland is an utterly compelling story of a twelve-year-old boy whose obsession with detecting lies threatens to tear his family apart.

We thought it would be interesting to show covers of both editions that are available. As you can see, the looks are quite different. So, which do you like? 




It does make you wonder though. What makes a YA cover YA? We might have to delve into the minds of our scarily talented fiction team sometime soon to find out...
Check out some of our other great Walker Canongate titles below.





Happy reading!

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Meg Medina - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft


We're very excited to have Meg Medina on the Undercover blog this week, writing from across the pond. Meg is the author of The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind, published here in the UK next week. 

This a story of change in difficult times. A tale of sacrifice. And, most of all, it is about fighting for a better future - for love. It's a poignant and spellbinding novel, with the perfect mix of romance, folk lore and magical realism.

We also think the cover looks pretty amazing...

Today, Meg has written a great post all about the characters from the book. Enjoy!


"The writer’s original perception of a character or characters may be as erroneous as the reader’s.” 
Stephen King on what he learned while writing his blockbuster novel, Carrie

I once lived under the sweet illusion that I was in control of the characters in my novels. They sprang from my imagination, after all. Why wouldn’t I be able to make them do whatever I pleased?

Silly me. If I’ve learned anything over the course of writing my latest novel, The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind, it’s that characters are like real people in every way, including how you get to know them. Your first encounters are always polite, measured. Then they show their fangs.

Early on I thought I was telling the tale of a girl who has to undo a terrible lie. The novel is about Sonia Ocampo, a girl mistakenly believed to be a holy child in her village and pinned (pretty literally) with her neighbours’ bottomless requests and petitions. But as more and more characters appeared, I began to see that Sonia was part of a bigger story about young people desperate for a future and willing to take unspeakable risks to achieve it.

A few times, I was nearly overrun with strong personalities, all of them clamouring to show me what it’s like to be young, poor, and without opportunities. It took some discipline to decide who would be allowed to stay and who would simply have to wait for another story.

Pancho is by far my favorite survivor. He’s one of the main characters, a bike taxi boy hopelessly in love with Sonia. I had no idea of this when I first met him, of course. In an early draft, he was in the background, sipping a soda and waiting for a fare. He had a single line. “At your orders, señorita.”

But an interesting thing happened when Sonia climbed into his taxi. She mentioned that he was a school chum and noticed that he looked handsome in his pressed uniform, so different from his worn shirt at school.

Uh-oh.

A few days later during page revisions, Pancho noticed Sonia’s pretty legs as she climbed into his taxi, and soon he made it known that he was a good writer and spent time entertaining her with his stories under the shade of a tree. His ambition: to recite a poem for el presidente. The only trouble: How does an orphan ever earn the chance for such an honor?

It was hopeless to contain him after that. He had “reluctant hero” written all over him, and he simply wouldn’t let me forget it. Each time I finished writing a chapter for Sonia, he’d creep into my imagination and pester me with questions. “Will Sonia miss me?” he’d ask. “Does she know I love her? Don’t you think I might know a secret or two about what really goes on in this town? Are you aware that poets are the bravest people of all?

In the end, I’m glad I followed his voice, just as I’m glad that I listened to the others who muscled in for space on the page, parading their delicious personality quirks like peacocks fanning their tails. Look at the cast today. Gossiping schoolgirls with unshakeable loyalty. A handsome rascal trying to find a way to care for his family. Knife-wielding bartenders with a passion for adventure stories. Bossy tías who aren’t above a few lies to get what they want.  And then, there are the thieves, murderers, and predators – all cleverly disguised as reasonable people, naturally.

In writing – and in life – you never know whom you’ll meet or how they’re destined to make their mark. From my author’s chair, I’d say that’s all the fun.

Intrigued? We've put a sample from the book below. You could also read some of the great reviews for the book on Goodreads (where it has the US cover)


The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind is out on the 7th June. Pre-order now:


There's also a trailer for the book on Meg's blog, as well as info about some of her other books. 


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City of Lost Souls UK tour


Exciting news Shadowhunter fans...

To celebrate the publication of City of Lost Souls, the fifth book in The Mortal Instruments, we're jetting Cassandra Clare over to the UK for a national tour. She starts in London, heads north to Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester, before heading to Bath and finishing at Hay Festival. 

As you can see below, it's a packed schedule, so there are plenty of chances to meet her and get your copy of City of Lost Souls signed!



TOUR LISTING

Tour Launch Event - Cassandra Clare with special guest Maureen Johnson: London 
Date: Saturday 26th May, 2 p.m.
Location: Theatre Royal, Stratford East, Gerry Raffles Square, London E15 1BN
Tickets: £8 for entry, or a special book and ticket price of £13. 
Visit Foyles to buy tickets.

Cassandra Clare Book Signing: Bluewater
Date: Sunday 27th May, 1 p.m.
Location: Waterstones Bluewater West, West Village, Greenhithe, Bluewater,  DA9 9SE
Tickets: This is a free event. For more information, visit Waterstones.com

An Evening with Cassandra Clare: Leeds
Date: Tuesday 29th May, 7 p.m.
Location: Waterstones Leeds, 93-97 Albion Street, Leeds, LS1 5JS 
Tickets: £3, available from the store. Please call 0843 290 8443. 
For more information visit Waterstones.com

Cassandra Clare Book Signing: Manchester
Date: Wednesday 30th May, 5 p.m.
Location: WHSmith, Store 5, Manchester Arndale Centre, Manchester, M4 3AD
Tickets: This is a free event.

An Evening with Cassandra Clare: Sheffield
Date: Thursday 31st May, 5.30 p.m.
Location: Library Theatre, Surrey Street, Sheffield, S1 1XZ
Tickets: £3, or £2 for under 18s and NUS cardholders, available from Waterstones Orchard Square, Sheffield. To book call 0114 272 8971. 
For more information visit Waterstones.com

An Evening with Cassandra Clare: Bath
Date: Friday 1st June, 6 p.m.
Location: Waterstones, 4-5 Milsom Street, Bath, BA1 1DA 
Tickets: Tickets are free but required to attend this event. Please call the store on 0843 290 8139. 
For more information visit Waterstones.com

Cassandra Clare Author Talk: Hay Festival (SOLD OUT)
Date: Saturday 2nd June, 4 p.m.
Location: Starlight Stage, Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wye
Tickets: SOLD OUT. For more information visit the Hay Festival website.


City of Lost Souls Tour BannerWe're also running a blog tour alongside the actual tour, but this one is a tour with a difference!

We've invited five of our blogger friends to come to a different event on the tour, for an exclusive interview with Cassandra Clare. Each blogger has been assigned a particular pair of The Mortal Instruments characters to ask questions about, and that's where YOU come in. You can submit questions to them on their blogs, or through twitter. They will post their Q+A's with Cassie on their blog after the event. Enjoy!


BLOG TOUR SCHEDULE

London:  My Favourite Books
Alec and Magnus
Send in your questions on the blog.
 Book tickets for the event.

Bluewater: The Overflowing Library
Maia and Jordan
Send in your questions on the blog or on twitter.
More information on the event.
 
Manchester: Wondrous Reads
Simon and Isabelle
More information on the event.
 
Sheffield: The Zoë-Trope
Jace and Clary
Send in your questions on the blog.
Book tickets for the event.
 
Bath: Dark Readers
Sebastian
Send in your questions on the blog or on twitter.
Book tickets for the event.

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We asked Peter Cocks to share some of his inspirations for his Eddie Savage thrillers with Undercover. Body Blow is the second Eddie Savage thriller, and you can watch the trailer for it and read a sample chapter at the bottom of this post! Or if you're new to Eddie, take a look at the trailer for the first thriller, Long Reach.

I am a big fan of “Geezer movies”, those films where washed-up villains pull off ridiculous deals, wear flash clothes and talk the kind of ‘Cockney’ slang that no-one really speaks. They drive terrible cars, are always about to get ‘hit’ and dish out a kind of violent retribution that is almost cartoon-like in its exaggeration. I find it hard to be horrified or offended by them, they are grotesque and, I think, quite funny: they are usually underpinned by a sense of humour.

When I started thinking about writing for an older YA audience, I felt that, after years of fantasy – magic, vampires and zombies – it was time for something a bit more gritty and urban.  What, I thought, if I was to put a younger character, 17 or 18, into this adult, gangster world? How would he deal with the moral and dangerous choices he has to make?

I came up with Eddie Savage: he is a little rougher-edged than your average hero, and his moral compass is a little off-kilter. He doesn’t always make the right decision.

I wanted to put him in a world of larger than life characters, colourful villains who are always out to get him, or each other.  In Long Reach, Eddie is amongst the underworld of London villains, while in Body Blow, he runs off to Spain, hoping to escape everything, only to find himself in a criminal fraternity even more colourful and extreme than the one he has left behind.

In forming Eddie’s character, rather than an ice-cold, slick James Bond-type character, I had something more ambivalent in mind.  I like the early Michael Caine films, such as The Ipcress File and Get Carter .  His character is cool, but not flash, he does not always follow the rule book, but I wanted to give Eddie a bit more depth and so I made him quite emotional.

Eddie has not had a great life nor a great deal of love, other than from his long suffering mum! He is a little insecure and craves affection. So he wants to, and does, fall in love. He does not just pick up girls and cast them aside as a more cold-hearted hero might. He gets involved.  Always to his cost.  I felt I had got this right when one of my reviewers desribed Eddie as:
“a new protagonist that will please both male and female readers as you would either want to date Eddie or be his best mate.”

This is what sets Eddie apart from other heroes, he’s not just a man’s man.

Also, he is permanently undercover, so he is always pretending to be someone else, even to his girlfriend.  Any slip might be fatal. This keeps him under constant pressure not to reveal himself too much.  I enjoy the TV series Spooks for this reason - the characters can not reveal too much, so much has to be left unsaid; secrecy adds tension.  We never really know what Eddie’s spy-masters are up to behind his back. Sometimes they even seem to be working against him…

So if any producers of ‘geezer movies’ or indeed TV spy series are reading this, Eddie Savage is the coming man!

The Eddie Savage thrillers are out now in paperback and eBook.









Body Blow by Peter Cocks extract

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