Cover Reveal & Book Giveaway: The Star-spun Web – Sinéad O’Hart (Illustrated by Sara Mulvanny) – Out 7th February 2019

Today, I’m incredibly excited to exclusively reveal the cover of Sinéad O’Hart’s eagerly-anticipated second novel after The Eye of the North, The Star-spun Web which will be published on 7th February 2019 by Stripes Books.

Click here to request it from Netgalley!

I’m also super delighted because the very lovely people at Stripes have given me five copies of The Star-spun Web to give away! Find out more below!

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The Star-spun Web – Sinead O’Hart

With her passion for scientific experimentation and her pet tarantula Violet, Tess de Sousa is no ordinary orphan.

When a stranger shows up at Ackerbee’s Home for Lost and Foundlings, claiming to be a distant relative come to adopt her, Tess hopes to find some answers to her mysterious origins. But as she adjusts to her new life at Roedeer Lodge, it becomes clear that Norton F. Cleat knows more about Tess – and the strange star-shaped device left with her when she was abandoned as a baby – than he’s letting on. And when Tess discovers that the Starspinner is the gateway between her world and a parallel world in which war rages, she realizes she may be the key to a terrible plan.

A plan she must stop at all costs…

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Publisher: Stripes/Little Tiger Press Group
ISBN: 9781788950220
Number of pages: 384

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Sinead O’Hart

(Image credit: https://sjohart.wordpress.com/about-me/)

Sinéad O’Hart was raised in a small house full of books in the south-east of Ireland. She has a degree in Medieval English and has had many careers (including butcher, bookseller and university lecturer). She now lives in County Meath, near Dublin, with her husband, their daughter and an ever-expanding book collection.

Visit sjohart.wordpress.com | @SJOHart

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Sara Mulvanny

(Image credit: https://twitter.com/saramulvanny)

Sara Mulvanny grew up with a paint brush in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. After studying Illustration at Kingston, Sara moved back to her North Hampshire studio which she shares with her cat, Simba. Whilst this cheeky feline tries to walk across Sara’s keyboard or balances precariously on stacked sketchbooks, Sara can be found creating her stylised pen and ink drawings, which she digitally transforms with texture and colour. Inspired by the age of Art Deco illustration and muted colour palettes, her charming illustrative style has captured the attention of many clients including Harrods, Sainsbury’s Magazine and Harper Collins.

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Huge thanks to Sinéad, Leilah and all at Stripes for inviting me to host this mightily impressive cover reveal, I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy!

Mr E
📚

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Preorder: The Star-spun Web is available to pre-order online from Amazon, Hive, Waterstones, WHSmith or from any good bookshop.

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Giveaway!

The very lovely people at Stripes have kindly given me five physical copies of The Star-spun Web to give away!

If you’d like to be in with a chance of winning one of these copies of this superb book, simply retweet (RT) this tweet!

Copies to be sent to winners when available from Stripes, just before, near or on publication on 7th February 2019.

Blog Tour (Guest Post): Frostfire – Jamie Smith (Illustrated by Karl James Mountford)

Title: Frostfire
Author: Jamie Smith (@JamieHBSmith)
Illustrator (Cover): Karl James Mountford (@karlj_mountford)
Publisher: Chicken House (@chickenhsebooks)
Page count: 288
Date of publication: 1st November 2018
Series status: N/A
ISBN: 978-1911077879

Perfect for Year 5 & Year 6.

#3Words3Emojis:
1) Mountain 🏔️
2) Avalanche ❄️
3) Secrets 🤐

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Chosen for the honour of bonding with a frostsliver – a fragment of the sentient glacier that crests her icy home – Sabira embarks on the dangerous pilgrimage to the top of the mountain. But when a huge avalanche traps her on the glacier and destroys the pass, Sabira is determined to find another way home.

In order to survive, she must face up to the merciless mountain – but there are dark and fiery secrets hiding in its depths…

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I’m delighted to welcome Jamie Smith, author of Frostfire, to The Reader Teacher where he shares his exclusive guest post talking about how he can push the boundaries of the fantasy genre and how this makes him think more innovatively about the way he builds his worlds…

Tolkien’s Legacy by Jamie Smith

For decades, the shadow of fantasy’s biggest name has loomed large. Only recently have others begun to chip away at the legend that Lord of the Rings built – and deservedly so. It’s a great world, with fantastic characters and plenty of original ideas! However, I can’t help but feel that the super success of the books has limited what fantasy can be for all too long. It doesn’t have to be elves and dwarves all the way down!

These concepts, along with the dark lord, orcs and countless others became the foundation for other mega-franchises and have stuck around ever since. You’ll never see an elf in my books. Not because they can’t be interesting, but because I’ve seen them so many times before. I’d rather build something new and personal to me than putting a new spin on someone else’s idea.

Fortunately, in recent years, it seems like a number of other authors are coming to agree with me. Names like Brandon Sanderson, Brent Weeks, Tomi Adeyemi and more. Every time I see something fresh, it inspires me to do better too – and the further the fantasy genre is pushed, the better. It’s a place where literally anything can happen, after all!

That’s why my book has a sentient glacier in it, and not a hint of a dark lord in sight.

I’m hoping that by expanding the worlds we tell these kinds of stories in, I and others can help break free of the weight of those writers that came before (while still using them for a leg up from time to time). That way, we don’t have the limits of medieval Europe constraining us, and we can be more inclusive with our characters. Even our world is full of places that are not stone castles and mild-weathered woodland, after all.

So, I do my best to fill my world with strange creatures, fantastic magic, heroes with strength of character and flaws to overcome, just like Tolkien did when he (practically) founded the genre.

I’ll just paint a different picture over the top while I do it.

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FROSTFIRE by Jamie Smith,
out now in paperback (£6.99, Chicken House)

Find out more at www.chickenhousebooks.com
and follow Jamie @JamieHBSmith and jhbsmith.com

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Look our for more reviews and guest posts from Jamie on the rest of the Frostfire blog tour from these brilliant book bloggers!

Blog Tour (Review): Absolutely Everything!: A History of Earth, Dinosaurs, Rulers, Robots and Other Things Too Numerous to Mention – Christopher Lloyd (#NNFN)

I’m delighted to have been asked to share my review today as part of National Non-Fiction November (#NNFN)!
National Non-Fiction November is the Federation of Children’s Book Groups’ annual celebration of all things factual. Born out of National Non-Fiction Day, the brain child of Adam Lancaster during his years as Chair, the whole month now celebrates all those readers that have a passion for information and facts and attempts to bring non fiction celebration in line with those of fiction.

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‘ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE… a book of beauty that will inspire a new generation. This is a time-travelling trek through Planet Earth as you’ve never seen it before!’

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Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Title: Absolutely Everything!: A History of Earth, Dinosaurs, Rulers, Robots and Other Things Too Numerous to Mention
Author: Christopher Lloyd
Illustrator (Cover): Justin Poulter
Illustrators (Inside): Andy Forshaw & Will Exley
Publisher: What On Earth? (@whatonearthbook)
Page count: 336
Date of publication: 4th October 2018
Series status: N/A
ISBN: 978-1999802820

Perfect for Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6.

#3Words3Emojis:
1. Enthralling 🤩
2. Exciting 😆
3. Everything 🌍

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It’s impossible, of course, to tell the whole story of absolutely everything. But simple impossibility will not stop author Christopher Lloyd. Join him for a fast-paced, entertaining and incredibly informative worldwide whirlwind tour connecting the science, nature and history of our world.

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Review: Beginning with the Big Bang and speeding through 13.8 billion years of time and space moving us all the way forward in to the modern world, this book through it’s fifteen fantastic chapters brings all things history, geography, science and technology to life.

When author Christopher found himself looking at the earth around him with fresh eyes, he realised that he – along with many others – did not know the true extent as to what our world and absolutely everything in it has been through before and why it has all happened. This spark of curiosity was the catalyst for the creation of this Big Book, and wasn’t too dissimilar from the spark that created our very own world – the Big Bang.

Wowzers! With more facts, information and knowledge than you could ever imagine, this is an excellent reference book for all ages. But it is SO MUCH more than that! It’s a book that you could lose all sense of time from being immersed in. It’s a book that you are sure to find something new and interesting every time you open its pages. It’s a book for the passionately curious. It’s a book for all the family. It’s a book that will inspire a new generation.

To add to the vast amount of facts, its incredible page design with easy-to-follow text, vivid and striking photographs, drawings, tables, charts, and quotes make this – for me – THE stand-out non-fiction book published this year.

Informative, in-depth, intriguing and incredible: the levels of richly-packed detail, vocabulary and terminology such as evolution, new civilisations, classic empires, explorers, conquerors, revolutions and wars that feature within this wonderful-written book are phenomenal. You would find it hard to not learn anything from simply picking this up and flicking through at first sight.
It is clear to see that Christopher Lloyd is in awe of this planet and its history and wants us to fall in complete awe of it too. With this superbly-written book, he succeeds so well in achieving this.  More recently, with its long-list nomination for the Blue Peter Book Awards 2019, every home and every school should be doing everything they can to own a copy of this extraordinary book.

Overall, Absolutely Everything! is best summed up by Christopher’s own words with it being for people ‘who love to ask questions as much as they like to find out answers’. A book like this would have been my bible when I was younger.

This is a time-travelling trek through history as you’ve never seen it before! So with 13.8 billion years of history waiting for you with a turn of the page… Get ready to explore and embark on a journey of a lifetime. The Earth’s lifetime! What are you waiting for?

‘ABSOLUTELY AMAZING… a book of beauty that will inspire a new generation.
This is a time-travelling trek through Planet Earth as you’ve never seen it before!’

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Big thanks to Chris Routh from FCBG (Federation of Children’s Book Groups) for inviting me to share my thoughts on this superb book as part of the National Non-fiction November blog tour!

Mr E

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Absolutely Everything!: A History of Earth, Dinosaurs, Rulers, Robots and Other Things Too Numerous to Mention is available to order now online or from any good bookshop.

Cover Reveal & Giveaway: When we were Warriors – Emma Carroll (Illustrated by Julian De Narvaez & designed by Margaret Hope): Out 7th February 2019!

Today, I’m absolutely unbelievably excited to exclusively reveal the cover of Emma Carroll’s eagerly-anticipated World War Two short story collection, When we were Warriors which will be published on 7th February 2019 by Faber Children’s.

I’m also super excited because the very lovely people at Faber Children’s have given me five copies of When we were Warriors to give away! Find out more below!

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When we were Warriors – Emma Carroll

A body washed up on the beach…
Evacuation to an old house with forbidden rooms and dark secrets…
An animal rescue service…

Set in World War Two, Emma Carroll explores the resilience, resourcefulness and inventiveness of children when their lives fall to pieces. Introducing some compelling new characters, as well as revisiting some familiar settings, these adventures are sure to win over new readers, as well as fans of old favourites such as Letters from the Lighthouse and Frost Hollow Hall.

Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 9780571350407
Number of pages: 256

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Emma Carroll

(Image credit: https://twitter.com/emmac2603)

Emma Carroll was a secondary school English teacher before leaving to write full time. She has also worked as a news reporter, an avocado picker and the person who punches holes into filofax paper. She graduated with distinction from Bath Spa University’s MA in Writing For Young People. When We Were Warriors is Emma’s ninth novel.
She lives in the Somerset hills with her husband and two terriers.

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Julian De Narvaez

(Image credit: https://folioart.co.uk/in-the-studio-julian-de-narvaez/)

Julian is an illustrator from Bogotá, Colombia, South America. Julian De Narvaez begins his drawings in pen and China ink, gradually assembling and colouring the images digitally. This process lends his illustrations a contemporary, eclectic feel, though with a surprisingly fine, traditional quality. This quirkiness is sought after for its engaging richness.

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Huge thanks to Emma, Sarah, Hannah and all at Faber Children’s for inviting me to host this stunning cover reveal, I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy!

Mr E
📚

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Preorder: When we were Warriors is available to pre-order online from Amazon, Hive, Waterstones, WHSmith or from any good bookshop.

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Giveaway!

The very lovely people at Faber Children’s have kindly given me five copies of When we were Warriors to give away!

If you’d like to be in with a chance of winning one of these copies of this superb book, simply retweet (RT) this tweet!

Copies to be sent to winners when available from Faber Children’s, just before, near or on publication on 7th February 2019.