Waiting on Wednesday

Yeah, it’s Monday. I’m in a special drafting place right now where if I don’t do things right away, I forget them completely. Seriously. Ask me what I ate today and 1. I’ve forgotten, and 2. I probably also forgot to eat in the first place. FUN TIMES.*

ANYWAY, I would like to tell you about the time I read a book called THE BLOOD KEEPER, by Tessa Gratton, and I thought to myself “Self, this is the greatest love story you will ever read. You will judge all love stories against this love story for the rest of your life.”

And that was true, or at least it was true, until a couple months ago when I got a lovely package in the mail from Random House that contained an ARC of Tessa’s new book THE LOST SUN, which is released a week from tomorrow.

Well, it’s a week tomorrow if you live in the US. If you live in Canada, you can get it right now, which is what I did this morning.

ANYWAY!

Seventeen-year-old Soren Bearskin is trying to escape the past. His father, a famed warrior, lost himself to the battle-frenzy and killed thirteen innocent people. Soren cannot deny that berserking is in his blood–the fevers, insomnia, and occasional feelings of uncontrollable rage haunt him. So he tries to remain calm and detached from everyone at Sanctus Sigurd”s Academy. But that”s hard to do when a popular, beautiful girl like Astrid Glyn tells Soren she dreams of him. That’s not all Astrid dreams of–the daughter of a renowned prophetess, Astrid is coming into her own inherited abilities.

When Baldur, son of Odin and one of the most popular gods in the country, goes missing, Astrid sees where he is and convinces Soren to join her on a road trip that will take them to find not only a lost god, but also who they are beyond the legacy of their parents and everything they’ve been told they have to be.

Let’s be honest, she pretty much had me at “Vikings”. I love alternate history SO HARD, and I am a sucker for a well built world, so the snippets that Tessa shared about her world-building and background stuff had me absolutely over the moon excited to read whatever the actual story was.

And don’t get me wrong, the world is excellent. The United States of Asgard feels like a real place (though since Canada has mostly been overrun by trollkin, I’m kind of glad I don’t live there), and all of the characters, mortal and otherwise, fit into it perfectly, from the ice cream truck to, well, that would be telling.

What surprised me, even though it absolutely shouldn’t have, was the depth, breadth and SHEER AWESOMESAUCE of the story. I mean, the action and adventure are all top notch and breathlessly exciting, but as a meditation on faith and love, THE LOST SUN manages to cross from being the sort of book I love with my heart to being the sort of book I love with my SOUL.

At this point, any of the flailing I could do would be rife with spoilers, and I’d hate to spoil anyone eight days out from the release date. But don’t despair! Remember the world building I was talking about earlier? Well Tessa’s website has all kinds of stuff, including some short stories, that will keep you while you’re waiting for your own shiny, shiny** copy of this book.

 

THE LOST SUN will be available on June 25, 2013, and is the perfect book to get for someone who likes Vikings, someone who reads books about faith and/or love and/or magic, and someone who has already read everything by Neil Gaiman.

 

 

 

*Seriously. I regret nothing.
**I’m not kidding. This book is SHINY. And gorgeous.