bookshelves of doom

10 Magic Books that Inspired Laura Lam's Shadowplay.

I invited Laura Lam here last year to talk a bit about the various inspirations behind Pantomime, and I'm so pleased to have her back to do the same with Shadowplay. Both books are part of a larger story about Micah Grey, runaway, aerialist, and now... MAGICIAN.

I've gone on and on and on about my love for Pantomime—I'm so pleased that it has a spot on this year's Cybils YA Speculative Fiction shortlist—so I was deliriously happy to finally get my hands on the sequel, Shadowplay. It picks up shortly after Pantomime left off, with Micah on the run and being hunted by not one, BUT TWO different groups, and it has the same blend of feels-like-fantasy-but-is-secretly-science-fiction, AMAZING worldbuilding, strong character development, a narrator with an original voice and perspective, but who is infinitely relatable, and Shadowplay is topped off by an extremely satisfying romantic arc! Like Pantomime, the storyline has threads of trust and family, identity and friendship and justice, and it's as satisfying intellectually as it is emotionally.

I can't wait for the next one.

And now, here's Laura!

I love lists, and really enjoyed coming up with a list for Bookshelves of Doom a few months ago about books that shaped my first book, Pantomime. I’m glad to be back to talk about books that helped shape the follow up, Shadowplay. For the first book, most of my research was on life in the circus and intersex history and issues. For the sequel, most of my research was on magic, illusion, and spiritualism. There’s a mix of fiction and non-fiction.

Hiding the Elephant, by Jim Steinmeyer.
I really enjoyed this book and it was probably the most useful for drafting Shadowplay. It's told in a conversational style and Steinmeyer explains how a lot of historic tricks worked. I learned how to describe the Pepper’s ghost that appears in Shadowplay from this book, and learned a lot about Robert-Houdin and Houdini, and many other lesser known magicians. Longer review here.

The Giant Taschen Book of Magic from 1400s-1950s.
This was my husband’s present to me when I got my book deal for Pantomime. It’s so huge that at the moment the only place I can store it is under my computer monitor, but I still take it out and look at it occasionally. It’s incredible, full of gorgeous colour plates and great essays (first in English, then French and German) as well as countless photos with captions in all three languages. Can’t recommend it enough. I write a longer review of it here.

Hocus Pocus, by Paul Kieve.
Aimed for younger readers, but it’s from the magician who worked on the set of Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban (when the map folds up on the table in the film, it was Paul Kieve underneath the table pulling the strings). It was a fun, quick read, and I’ll probably buy it for one of my nephews when they’re a little older. Longer review here.

The First Psychic, by Peter Lamont.
This is the biography of Daniel Dunglas Home, one of the most famous psychics in the Victorian era, who was never caught using any tricks, even though what he did seemed to be impossible. Very fascinating. Longer review here.

Writing the Other, by Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward.
I kept hearing about this short work about writing about the Other around the internet and read it. It was an excellent short work about diversity and the common pitfalls people can fall into when writing about people different to themselves, often unthinkingly. Definitely impacted certain aspects of Shadowplay, specifically regarding sexuality and race. I didn’t get around to writing a review of this one on my blog – though I should have done!

Carter Beats the Devil, by Glen David Gold.
My agent gave me this book as a present! It’s a fictional telling of Carter as a magician in San Francisco. Very detailed and beautifully written. I based Maske, the magician in Shadowplay, a bit on Carter mixed with Robert-Houdin.

The Prestige, by Christopher Priest.
I saw the film when it came out and it (and the Illusionist) were both great visual research. I read the book and loved it – thought it was fantastic. It sparked the idea for the magician duel I have in Shadowplay, though I take a very different focus. A few people have called Shadowplay a YA Prestige, which sort of fits, much like Pantomime was often compared to The Night Circus.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke.
I read this when it was hyped around its release. I did enjoy it, though wow, it’s a lengthy book! These are magicians more in the traditional magic sense versus illusion, but the delicate Victorian culture and such matches with Shadowplay as well, and I’m sure it had an effect on the book somewhere along the way.

The Tempest, by William Shakespeare.
I studied this at university and I think it had a large effect on Shadowplay. Maske could also be likened a little to Prospero – a man thrown out from his rightful profession unfairly, struggling for redemption. The Tempest is also quite dream-like, and many secrets are revealed in dreams in my book.

Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling.
I would be remiss not including the series I’ve read at least a dozen times as a teenager. I was a huge HP nerd – waited in line for the books at midnight, dressing up with my friends as witches and wizards, reading fan fiction, the works. I think the fact that this book has a trio could be linked back to the original trio I read so often as a teen – Harry, Hermione, and Ron. I also think Rowling’s rich approach to worldbuilding influenced me, as well as having little hints in earlier books that come to prominence in later installments.

So, those are some books that I’m sure had an influence, but I’m sure there’s more that have influenced me in ways I don’t realise. I enjoyed all then of these, so if you haven’t read ‘em, I recommend picking them up for a bit of magic.

Laura Lam is the author of Pantomime and Shadowplay, and can be found in various places online, including Facebook, Twitter, and at her website.

Previously:

Robin Wasserman's Eight Favorite Scary Small Towns.

April Lindner's Ten Favorite Retellings.

Sarah Beth Durst's Ten Favorite Atmospheric Reads.

Jonathan Stroud's Seven Favourite Swordsmen.

Cori McCarthy's Top Seven Traumatizing (In a Good Way) Reads.

Six of Gayle Forman's favorite Grow-Your-Comfort-Zone novels.

Classic Revenge Stories: Five books that led the way for Karen Finneyfrock's The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door.

Dianne K. Salerni's Seven Favorite Gothic Novels.

Beth Revis' Top Ten Modern YA Science Fiction novels.

Ten Books that Shaped Laura Lam's Pantomime.

Madness, Tortured Romance, and a Heck of a Lot of Castles: Megan Shepherd's Love Affair with Gothic Literature... or, Megan Shepherd's Eight Favorite Gothics.

Lauren Roedy Vaughn's Five Favorite Literary Adult Mentors... Plus Two Characters Who Need One.

Robin Wasserman's Eight Favorite Scary Small Towns.

There are a lot of ways that books can help you feel more connected to other people and to the world: you can recognize yourself in a character, you can relate to a situation, you can share an emotion. More rarely, an author can describe the world in such a way that you think, "OH. S/HE GETS IT."

I always get that feeling from Stephen King's descriptions of Maine: he captures the everyday weirdness of our culture without overdoing it, satirizing it, or caricaturing it the way that so many others do. I got that same feeling from Robin Wasserman's Ode to King, The Waking Dark, in a different, but almost more personal way: I felt like I was reading a story by someone who shared some of my deepest fears, but also some of my greatest hopes.

In The Waking Dark, it's regular people who are the monsters. But it's also regular people—through shining acts of bravery, selflessness, loyalty, kindness, hope—who bring about their own salvation.

It's an outstanding novel, and as in many of King's stories, the small-town setting plays a large part in it: random brutality is scary, sure, but it's terrifying when neighbor turns on neighbor, preacher on parishioner, husband on wife, father on son. Add to that a small-town setting that's inescapable—as someone who spent my childhood and teen years in a small town, let me tell you: sometimes they can seem inescapable on the best of days, even without armed soldiers guarding the town lines and former friends turning murderous—and you've got the perfect backdrop for a horror story that will give you chills even in broad daylight.

And now, I'll turn it over to Robin:

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the soulless suburbs, my adolescence spent shuffling between the multiplex and the mall with the occasional Baskin Robbins detour to spice things up, but I have always been fascinated by small towns. Cities, I understood. The city was field trips and special occasions, noise and traffic and Broadway shows. The city was My Future, the place I would escape to in that hazy someday when high school ended and I could finally live out the Rent/Fame/Desperately Seeking Susan life of my dreams. There was no mystery there. I knew (or at least, thought I knew) every detail of what that life would be.

Small towns, on the other hand? That was a mystery. That was a life I could barely imagine, because the small towns I knew best only existed in fiction…usually, the kind of fiction that came with vampires and carnies and evil clowns hiding behind every picturesque general store. I spent most of my teen years escaping into fictional worlds, retreating from the agonies of adolescence into scarier but more conquerable horrors. And the best of these horrors were almost always to be found in small towns, where friendly faces hid dark secrets, where innocence butted up against ancient sin. It’s no wonder that when I set out to write my own horror novel, I dreamed up Oleander, Kansas, full of cornfields, cheerleaders, ministers, meth dealers, and many, many secrets. People often ask me why I set The Waking Dark in a small Midwestern town, and I always tell them: Where else?

Here, in honor of its publication, are some of my all-time favorite scary small towns:

Derry, Maine – from Stephen King’s It
There are some King fans who swear by Castle Rock (setting for The Dead Zone, Cujo, The Dark Half, etc), but for me, it’s all about Derry. This small town in Maine has been home to massacres, fires, and lynchings, not to mention your run-of-the- mill “murder by evil, balloon-dispensing sewer creature”—probably because it’s the ancestral home of Pennywise the Clown, who you do not want to meet. Terrible, nightmarish things happen in Derry…and, most terrifying of all, no one in Derry much seems to care.

Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine – from Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot
For the first half of the book, this town is nowhere near as terrifying as most of King’s settings. Sure, you wouldn’t want to live there, but you could probably stop by for a burger and shake without getting murdered. Then come the vampires.

Green Town, Illinois – from Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes
Never, ever go to a traveling carnival...especially at 3 AM. That’s what I learned from this book. Also, if a guy covered in tattoos, some of which seem to be the faces of people you know, introduces himself as Mr. Dark, probably best to run home, hide under the bed, and wait until the wind blows the smell of cotton candy way out of town.

Somewhere near Monroeville, Iowa – from Daniel Kraus’s Scowler
I don’t exactly know where in Iowa Ry Burke’s farm is supposed to be (the story never leaves the bounds of its property), but I know I wouldn’t want to be stuck there. Especially not with a psychopathic father and three talking dolls, one of which seems to really like killing things. The most disturbing book I’ve read all year, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Wind Gap, Missouri – from Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects
Someone in this creepy little town is murdering young girls and stealing their teeth. Need I say more? (You may wonder what they’re doing with the teeth…and I promise, whatever you’re thinking? It’s even worse than that.)

Colleton, South Carolina – from Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides
The thing that always gets me about this book (which, for some reason, I read over and over again when I was 17) is that, despite all the horrors visited on the narrator’s childhood, he can’t shake his enchantment with the island where he grew up. It’s in his DNA: “My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.”

Oelwein, Iowa – from Nick Reding’s Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town
Oelwein is a real town, and Methland is a real life horror story about how economic devastation and meth infestation have formed a cancer that’s metastasized across small town America. Oelwein comes to life as a place full of people struggling desperately to save their home from obsolescence and ruin. (Also, the book is an amazing read and one of the huge inspirations for The Waking Dark.)

Honorable mention to…

Twin Peaks
I know, I know, it’s a TV show. But it managed to scare the crap out of me when I was eleven years old and all these years later I’m still terrified. This is a town that contains the Black Lodge, Owl Cave, the Double R Diner, One Eyed Jack’s (supposedly across the border, but close enough), the Saw Mill, the Road House, and Bob. I’d say more, but I’m too freaked out to keep typing. Watch it for yourself.

Keep the lights on.

Previously:

April Lindner's Ten Favorite Retellings.

Sarah Beth Durst's Ten Favorite Atmospheric Reads.

Jonathan Stroud's Seven Favourite Swordsmen.

Cori McCarthy's Top Seven Traumatizing (In a Good Way) Reads.

Six of Gayle Forman's favorite Grow-Your-Comfort-Zone novels.

Classic Revenge Stories: Five books that led the way for Karen Finneyfrock's The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door.

Dianne K. Salerni's Seven Favorite Gothic Novels.

Beth Revis' Top Ten Modern YA Science Fiction novels.

Ten Books that Shaped Laura Lam's Pantomime.

Madness, Tortured Romance, and a Heck of a Lot of Castles: Megan Shepherd's Love Affair with Gothic Literature... or, Megan Shepherd's Eight Favorite Gothics.

Lauren Roedy Vaughn's Five Favorite Literary Adult Mentors... Plus Two Characters Who Need One.

April Lindner's Ten Favorite Retellings.

I've read a LOT of retellings of both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, and April Lindner's Jane and Catherine are two of my favorites. Both capture the atmosphere and drama of the originals, both integrate details from the originals while still telling a fresh story, and both succeed in making the stories work in the present day despite the significant changes to technology, culture, and gender roles that have occurred since the time of the Brontë sisters.

Actually, in regards to that last strength, one of the super things about Lindner's books is that while they do make allowances for those big cultural and technological shifts, they also—seemingly conversely in theory, but it TOTALLY WORKS in practice—show that in some ways, people haven't actually changed all that much.

Long story short, her books are good stuff, and I'm dying to read the one she's working on: a retelling of E.M. Forster's A Room with a View.

And now, I shall turn it over to the woman herself:

Retellings presents certain challenges for a writer: How can a book pay tribute to the original and yet still stand on its own? And will readers who adore the original open their hearts to an adaptation? As much as I love literary retellings (and I do!) I’m a pretty skeptical reader of them. I wonder as I read: does the author love the original as much as I do? Does the book stand on its own?

Here are ten books that rise to the challenge. I've saved my absolute favorites for last.

10. For Darkness Shows the Stars, by Diana Peterfreund.

Right off the bat, I’m cheating a little, because I’m in the middle of reading this novel right now! So far, though, it’s a really promising Young Adult dystopian version of one of my favorites, Jane Austen’s Persuasion. After a genetic experiment devastates the earth, technology is outlawed by the ruling class. Elliot North, the daughter of a Luddite landowner refuses to run away with the servant boy she loves. Years later, he returns and Elliot must chose between love and duty.

9. Ash, by Malinda Lo.

This Young Adult retelling of Cinderella takes some big risks and makes them pay off. To the story’s familiar elements—a wicked stepmother, a young girl forced into virtual slavery, a prince—Lo adds a darkly seductive netherworld of fairies and a romance with the king’s huntress.

8. Austenland, by Shannon Hale.

I haven’t seen the movie version yet, but I really enjoyed this fun and frothy book. It’s not a straightforward retelling of Pride and Prejudice so much as a contemporary romp inspired by that grandmamma of all romantic comedies. A young New Yorker obsessed with Pride and Prejudice takes a trip to an English resort for Austen fanatics. At the novel’s heart is the eternal question: will she find her very own Mr. Darcy?

7. Ophelia, by Lisa Klein.

This Young Adult novel retells Hamlet from Ophelia’s point of view, finding her inner strength and independence. Klein’s love of her source material shines through; Ophelia’s first person voice feels true to the original. I’ve always been fascinated by the character of Ophelia; I even named my yellow lab after her! So I’m grateful for this book which lets me see her intelligence and her will to survive.

6. The Three Weissmans of Westport, by Cathleen Schine.

Falling in love wisely has always been a matter of finding the balance between what our hearts want and what our heads advise. This novel discovers the many ways in which Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility still rings true today.

5. A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley.

This unsettling retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear stands on its own. An Iowa farmer decides to split his land among his three daughters, unleashing all that is dark in their personalities.

4. Here on Earth, by Alice Hoffman.

A woman returns to her hometown, teenage daughter in tow, and finds herself drawn to her abusive ex-lover. This update of Wuthering Heights captures some of the original’s brooding atmosphere as it explores the perils of being hopelessly drawn to Mr. Wrong.

3. Bridget Jones’s Diary, by Helen Fielding.

Like the movie that it spawned, this riff on Pride and Prejudice is good, frothy fun.

2. State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett.

Mere words can’t express how moved I was by this novel. Inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, it tells the riveting story of a pharmaceuticals researcher who travels into the depths of the Amazon to investigate a colleague’s mysterious death. I read everything Patchett writes, and this is my favorite among her books so far.

1. Rebecca, by Daphne DuMaurier.

Inspired by Jane Eyre, this dark psychological thriller is a classic in its own right. A timid young bride moves into the mansion her older widowed husband shared with his first wife. Our narrator is haunted by insecurities and suspicions: how can she ever compete with her husband’s memories of the glamorous Rebecca? Bonus: the movie version, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Sir Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, is fantastic too.

April Lindner is the author of Jane and Catherine, among others. She can be found online at her website, her blog, and Twitter.

Previously:

Sarah Beth Durst's Ten Favorite Atmospheric Reads.

Jonathan Stroud's Seven Favourite Swordsmen.

Cori McCarthy's Top Seven Traumatizing (In a Good Way) Reads.

Six of Gayle Forman's favorite Grow-Your-Comfort-Zone novels.

Classic Revenge Stories: Five books that led the way for Karen Finneyfrock's The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door.

Dianne K. Salerni's Seven Favorite Gothic Novels.

Beth Revis' Top Ten Modern YA Science Fiction novels.

Ten Books that Shaped Laura Lam's Pantomime.

Madness, Tortured Romance, and a Heck of a Lot of Castles: Megan Shepherd's Love Affair with Gothic Literature... or, Megan Shepherd's Eight Favorite Gothics.

Lauren Roedy Vaughn's Five Favorite Literary Adult Mentors... Plus Two Characters Who Need One.

Sarah Beth Durst's Ten Favorite Atmospheric Reads.

Cybils nomination time is fast approaching, and while I haven't decided what I'll nominate in the YA category, I know what my pick will be for YA SF/F: Sarah Beth Durst's Conjured.

It's an outstanding read in every way: voice, character, world-building, plotting, and emotional impact. It's multi-faceted and multi-layered and has fabulous re-read potential. It's not an easy read—it requires patience from the reader, as well as a willingness to actively work at understanding Eve's perception of the world—but that makes it all the more satisfying when everything comes together.

It's dark and scary and confusing, but it's also romantic and hopeful and contains moments of pure joy. It's about what it means to be human, about how our understanding of the world is colored by experience, and it's a fantasy, a mystery, a cop drama, a fairy tale, and a romance all rolled into one.

It's a fabulously excellent book, and I hope you read it soon.

And now, here's Sarah!

Thanks for inviting me here, Leila! Hi, everyone! I'm Sarah Beth Durst. My new YA book Conjured is the darkest, wildest, and creepiest book I've ever written. It's about a girl in the paranormal witness protection program, who, haunted by visions of carnival tents and tarot cards, must remember her past and why she has strange abilities before a magic-wielding serial killer hunts her down.

I loved writing the creepy parts.

Okay, the other parts were fun too, especially Zach's lines. But the nightmarish visions...

When I was a kid, I used to lie awake at night, convinced that the sound of my heartbeat was actually the sound of footsteps coming slowly and steadily toward my room. But I couldn't run to my parents for help because if I left my bed, then the invisible giant snakes under my bed would bite my ankles. As they do.

(My husband tells me I wouldn't have had this issue if I hadn't gone to a preschool that kept a massive boa constrictor as a pet. I've pointed out that they also had a goat, and I never had any weird satyr dreams. He says that's not the same at all.)

Anyway, that feeling of dread was what I drew on when I wrote this book, and taking that old feeling and wrapping it in words was... weirdly fun. Or maybe the word I want is cathartic. The novel is told in a very tight point-of-view -- the idea is for the reader to experience what Eve is experiencing. I tried to wrap myself in her shadowy world and see it through Eve's eyes. I really wanted to recreate that middle-of-the-night feeling of disorientation and an atmosphere of claustrophobic chaos as she gropes toward understanding (and then has it ripped away from her).

So for my list of Friday Faves, I picked books that reek with atmosphere. These books smother you with it until you're breathing their air. They wrap themselves around you and pull you into their world. You emerge from them in a fog, the real world tinged with the feel of that darker world, as if it has left behind a thin film on everything.

In no particular order, here are books that have smothered me with their atmosphere:

Past the Size of Dreaming, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

All of Nina Kiriki Hoffman's YA books have a delicious haunting quality to them. Her prose is always beautiful, and her characters are always entrancing. I think my all-time favorite of hers is A Fistful of Sky, but for sheer atmosphere, I have to highlight A Red Heart of Memories and its sequel Past the Size of Dreaming. They're about Matt, Edmund, and Susan, three teens with odd powers and painful pasts. The sequel centers around a haunted house.

The Homeward Bounders, by Diana Wynne Jones

Jamie accidentally stumbles across a game played across parallel universes by scary, powerful beings called Them. But just describing it like that doesn't do it justice. Jamie is lost, and he spends the novel trying to go home again. His fate has haunted me for over twenty years.

The Keys to the Kingdom series, by Garth Nix

Nithlings! Fetchers! Ahhhhhh! This series is about a boy named Arthur Penhaligon who basically has to save the universe. Nearly every page has some brilliant, imaginative creation -- many of which are thoroughly and awesomely creepy.

The Changeover, by Margaret Mahy

I first read this book when I was about ten years old. And then I read it again. And again. And again... It's a supernatural romance about Laura, a girl whose brother's soul is slowly being sucked away by a creepy villain named Carmody Braque. She turns to a witch, Sorry Carlisle, for help, but he and his family have an agenda of their own. Mahy's The Tricksters is also deliciously creepy.

Alice in Zombieland, by Gena Showalter

Alice Bell thinks her father is crazy. He insists no one leave the house after dark because of the "monsters." When Alice convinces her family to go out one night, her family is killed by zombies in front of her. Needless to say, this leads Alice to have a lot of issues. This book is dark and wonderful, and I can't wait for the sequel.

Silence, by Michelle Sagara

Emma can talk to dead people. This is not a good thing. People who have this power usually turn evil and use the dead to work evil magic. People who have this power usually need to be killed as quickly as possible. This book is very compelling and reeks of atmosphere.

The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman

Actually, the Neil Gaiman book I found to be the most scary and creepy is his picture book with Dave McKean, Wolves in the Walls. But since we're talking novels here... this book is about Nobody Owens, who was raised by ghosts in a cemetery. The ghosts were charming, and the killer Jack freaked me out. His novel Coraline is also quite ghoulish, and because of that book, I will always find Lalaloopsy Dolls to be profoundly disturbing.

Chime, by Franny Billingsley

You want a book full of atmosphere? This one. It drips with it. It oozes it. This book is about Briony, a girl who has been stuffed full of so many secrets and lies that her self-worth has been seriously warped.

The Darkangel trilogy, by Meredith Ann Pierce

This trilogy is full of angst, romance, and melodrama (in a good way). It always reminded me of a romantic Bluebeard, except the heroine saves Bluebeard instead of needing to be saved. Like The Changeover, I read these books eons ago, but they've stayed with me.

The Dark Unwinding, by Sharon Cameron

Set in England in 1852, this book drips with classic Gothic atmosphere. Think Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights with clockwork gadgets. Katharine is sent to her uncle's estate with instructions to declare him insane but instead discovers a clockwork factory that is the hope of hundreds. Definitely a novel you can sink into on a dark, chilly night.

Happy reading!

Sarah Beth Durst is the author of Conjured and Vessel, among many others. She can be found online at her website, her blog, Facebook, and Twitter.

Previously:

Jonathan Stroud's Seven Favourite Swordsmen.

Cori McCarthy's Top Seven Traumatizing (In a Good Way) Reads.

Six of Gayle Forman's favorite Grow-Your-Comfort-Zone novels.

Classic Revenge Stories: Five books that led the way for Karen Finneyfrock's The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door.

Dianne K. Salerni's Seven Favorite Gothic Novels.

Beth Revis' Top Ten Modern YA Science Fiction novels.

Ten Books that Shaped Laura Lam's Pantomime.

Madness, Tortured Romance, and a Heck of a Lot of Castles: Megan Shepherd's Love Affair with Gothic Literature... or, Megan Shepherd's Eight Favorite Gothics.

Lauren Roedy Vaughn's Five Favorite Literary Adult Mentors... Plus Two Characters Who Need One.

Jonathan Stroud's Seven Favourite Swordsmen.

I wrote about Jonathan Stroud's The Screaming Staircase weeks ago at Kirkus, and I'm still so crazy in love with it that I got all frothy-gushy about it this morning, just because Josh made the mistake of using the word 'sword' in conversation.

It pubs on September 17th, and I'm not sure if I'm going to make it until then... all I want to do is squee and squee and squee some more with all of the library patrons who I'm sure will love it as much as I do.

Anyway! It's smart, it's scary, it's exciting, it's funny, it's got loads of atmosphere and great world-building and DID I MENTION HOW MUCH I LOVE IT?

Um. I think I should probably just turn this post over to Jonathan Stroud right now before I embarrass myself further. Here he is!

One of the pleasures for me of my new series, Lockwood & Co., is that it gives me the excuse to equip my heroes with whopping great swords. Well, they’re rapiers, actually, which is important for reasons I’ll come to in a moment; but since my heroes are modern-day kids, the effect is still quite startling. Here’s the set-up. There’s an epidemic of hauntings in Britain, and Lockwood, Lucy and George are psychic investigators. Like other psychically talented children up and down the country, they’re on the front line in the battle with the supernatural enemy. Since ghosts are vulnerable to iron (among other things), iron weapons come in handy. And what could be better than a natty sword?

But not any old sword. No. As an avid reader, and as a watcher of movies, I learned early on that a sword (and the ensuing swordfight) is a clear philosophical expression of the character’s personality. Read about Conan the Barbarian, for instance, and you see someone who uses his monster broadsword to cleave skulls with appealing energy and brio; he’s not, however, the man to come to for subtlety, sophistication or aesthetic finesse. By contrast, heroes with lighter swords tend to be elegant, refined and classy. Men who wield them are masculine, but sensitive. The women? Strong but feminine. Hence the rapiers for my mixed-sex heroes of Lockwood & Co.

Anyway, to celebrate the publication of the series, here’s a handy guide to some of the sword-swishing heroes that I’ve most enjoyed…

Robin Hood

My first literary pin-up. It helped that Robin was seared onto my consciousness thanks to his Errol Flynn incarnation, but he was also the star of numerous retellings that I adored when I was small. Robin was of course a bowman, first and foremost, but he was pretty nifty with a sword too, as Basil Rathbone’s ghost will tell you.

Odysseus

Another of my childhood heroes, although the interesting thing about him was that he didn’t actually use his sword that much. Most of the time he relies on his intelligence (plus large pointy stakes etc) to get him out of trouble. This points the way towards the fact that the most satisfying swordsmen (and women) are clever as well as skilled.

Asterix (in Asterix the Gaul, etc. by Goscinny and Uderzo)

This indomitable moustachioed Ancient Gaul always goes round with two things at his belt: a gourd of magic potion brewed by his druid, Getafix, and his faithful short sword. Most of his scraps, admittedly, involve simply punching Romans, but his cliff-top sword-fight with evil chieftain Whosemoralsarelastix in Asterix and the Cauldron is classic Hollywood material.

Rudolf Rassendyll (in The Prisoner of Zenda/Rupert of Hentzau by Anthony Hope)

The swordsman as pure Romantic hero. For maximum effect, Hope’s novels demand to be read in one’s teenage years. The doomed romance with a beautiful woman promised to another, the honourable suppression of one’s desires, the final dual to the death with the devilish Rupert of Hentzau… What wistful, spotty youth could ask for more?

The Grey Mouser (in Swords Against Deviltry, etc. by Fritz Leiber)

One half of Leiber’s ground-breaking swords-and-sorcery duo, the diminutive Mouser teams up with the giant barbarian Fafhrd for many disreputable adventures. The classic story of their meeting, Ill Met in Lankhmar, combines swashbuckling heroics with an appealingly sour, downbeat tone. A swordsman for a slightly older, more jaded palate.

Aillas (in Lyonesse, by Jack Vance)

For large portions of Vance’s masterpiece, Aillas is a vagabond king-in-waiting, enduring various picaresque adventures. Unshowy and supremely practical, he resorts to swordplay only when pushed; nevertheless, he is formidable in battle, and fully prepared to slice a treacherous fox-headed witch in two with one blow of his sword. And quite right too.

Monkey (in Journey to the West, by Wu Cheng’en, trans. Arthur Waley)

Okay, this is a cheat. Did Monkey actually have a sword? Nope. He had a magic staff, with which he duffed up demons and other evil-doers – but I’m going to say that’s near enough. Not only that, Monkey also had cloud-walking boots, once peed on Buddha’s hand, and, with his general irreverence, impudence and all-round cool, is easily the greatest anti-hero in classic literature. The hairy model against which all later swashbucklers must be measured.

Okay, I'm back to gush just a teeny, tiny bit more: HOLY COW, I LOVE THE GREY MOUSER SO MUCH. Third childhood crush, after Disney's foxy Robin Hood and Jonathan Crombie as Gilbert Blythe. I discovered him before Howl, even! SWOON. Obviously, his inclusion on the list is YET ANOTHER point in this book's favor.

Previously:

Cori McCarthy's Top Seven Traumatizing (In a Good Way) Reads.

Six of Gayle Forman's favorite Grow-Your-Comfort-Zone novels.

Classic Revenge Stories: Five books that led the way for Karen Finneyfrock's The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door.

Dianne K. Salerni's Seven Favorite Gothic Novels.

Beth Revis' Top Ten Modern YA Science Fiction novels.

Ten Books that Shaped Laura Lam's Pantomime.

Madness, Tortured Romance, and a Heck of a Lot of Castles: Megan Shepherd's Love Affair with Gothic Literature... or, Megan Shepherd's Eight Favorite Gothics.

Lauren Roedy Vaughn's Five Favorite Literary Adult Mentors... Plus Two Characters Who Need One.

Cori McCarthy's Top Seven Traumatizing (In a Good Way) Reads.

Cori McCarthy's Color of Rain is not a book I'd hand to someone who is concerned that YA fiction has become too dark. It deals, after all, with human trafficking, with sex work, with emotional and physical abuse, with fear and depression and loss. Over the course of her journey, the heroine, Rain, not only walks through Hell, but for a time, is a resident there: for a time, she abandons all hope, and for a time, she shuts down, stops thinking, feeling, caring.

But she fights, and she survives. And ultimately, she makes her way through and out of the dark... not unscathed, but whole.

It's a tense, smart, compelling, disturbing, original read. And I find it ever-so fitting that Cori McCarthy decided on Traumatizing (In a Good Way) Reads for her theme. So, without further ado, here are seven traumatizing books that inspired her to write Color of Rain:

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

A story about a girl who does anything and everything to keep herself afloat through a dreary, unfortunate series of fate face-slaps. Jane was always in the back of my mind when I wrote Rain; I wanted Rain to have that same brave face no matter what. Unshakable to the very end!

Feed, by M.T. Anderson

This YA sci-fi really stands out. And if you think Rain is chilling and bleak, try this book on for size. It offers lessons about defending individuality in such arrestingly artistic ways. Plus, who doesn’t love a book that starts with, “We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck."

Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan

This book goes too far. It uses stunning poetry to weave a wretched, disturbing story into the reader’s mind. That story has stayed with me for years, like it or not, and while I was writing Rain, I was aware that I needed to go too far as well. I needed the reader to understand that what Rain was doing was not okay, not for her, not for anyone. And also to demonstrate that, like the teenage sex trade, this sort of thing happens.

Keturah and Lord Death, by Martine Leavitt

This is another story about a girl who will do anything and make the hardest decisions. Keturah is headstrong and steady. She’s wise beyond her young age and does not shift from sacrifice. I hope that Rain’s terrible choices feel as necessary and (somewhat) noble as Keturah’s do.

Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

Ah, you might be surprised here, but this book gave me shivers. I’m a little shocked by some of the most deliciously romantic things about Edward. To me, he always felt on the edge of being overly obsessive and possessive. Dangerous—not because he is a vampire—but because he yearns to own Bella. I didn’t realize that I had drawn on my reaction to Twilight when I wrote Rain until someone referred to Johnny as the anti-Edward Cullen. I’m not going to lie, that one made me giggle quite a bit.

Lips Touch: Three Times, by Laini Taylor

This collection of three short stories is kind of mesmerizing and so hot and heavy—in weird ways, I should point out. I’m not sure that I knew how sexy of a tone I could get away with while writing YA until I read this book. Like Tender Morsels, it feels daring and strange and dark in ways that you can’t always put your finger on.

Dancing on the Edge, by Han Nolan

This book made me cry silent tears that streamed until I gave up on tissues and just let myself puddle. It’s a quieter coming of age story than all these other books, but it has a slamming, important heartbeat. Every time I read it, the main character, Miracle, proves how much a person can go through while retaining their humanity, sanity and willingness to love.

Cori MccCarthy is the author of Color of Rain. She can be found online at her website, Facebook, and Twitter.

Previously:

Six of Gayle Forman's favorite Grow-Your-Comfort-Zone novels.

Classic Revenge Stories: Five books that led the way for Karen Finneyfrock's The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door.

Dianne K. Salerni's Seven Favorite Gothic Novels.

Beth Revis' Top Ten Modern YA Science Fiction novels.

Ten Books that Shaped Laura Lam's Pantomime.

Madness, Tortured Romance, and a Heck of a Lot of Castles: Megan Shepherd's Love Affair with Gothic Literature... or, Megan Shepherd's Eight Favorite Gothics.

Lauren Roedy Vaughn's Five Favorite Literary Adult Mentors... Plus Two Characters Who Need One.

Six of Gayle Forman's favorite Grow-Your-Comfort-Zone novels.

I read Gayle Forman's Just One Day very early on this year, and it's stayed with me for all of these months. On a regular basis, I see or read or hear something that reminds me of it, and that only serves to make me A) want to re-read it, and B) want to read the sequel. (OH MY GOD, ESPECIALLY B! BUT ALSO A.)

It's a coming-of-age story, yes, but it's a coming-of-age story that plays with how we try on and try out different roles and personas and faces—as the love interest is an actor, that part of the story resonates that much more—and it's a story about exploration, about testing boundaries, about taking chances, about risk, about the power of attraction, of connection, of love. It's a story about growing out of friendships, and about growing out of ourselves, and it's about actively growing—choosing to change—into a new self.

It's so, so lovely, and if you're a fan of contemporaries and you HAVEN'T read it yet, I do hope that you will. It's THAT GOOD.

But, enough of ME. Here's Gayle:

There are many reasons I love travel, but the reason I love it most is the reason I hate it most: It pushes me out of my comfort zone, and as everyone knows, that can be a, well, uncomfortable (and embarrassing and maddening and frightening) place to be. It’s also the place where growth happens, which is probably why travel tends to be so transformative.

Travel is not the only road to transformation. It’s just a really efficient (not to mention fun) one because it deep-ends you way out of your comfort zone (or at least it does the way I do it). I love all manner of stories and novels that thrust readers far from home (real or metaphoric) watch them flounder and then allow them to grow. Here are six of my Grow-Your-Comfort-Zone novels.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

There is so much to love in Alexie’s heartbreakingly funny novel about Junior, a misfit squared. As if it’s not enough to be born poor, Indian, and living on the Rez, Junior also suffers from a series of congenital health issues. On top of that, he’s smart. Really smart. So smart that he winds up transferring from the reservation school to a rich school, where he and the school mascot are the only Indians. What could be a tale of Poor Indian Getting Picked On By Whitey turns out to be much more nuanced story, with Junior developing deep relationships with his new friends at his school, and seeing relationships on the reservation challenged, and as a result, not fitting in quite anywhere. He gains things, and loses things along the way, important things—this book will break your fucking heart—but in the end he grows. And so will your heart.

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë

Poor Jane never really has a comfort zone. An orphan living with her aunt’s family, she’s an outcast there. Then she’s an outcast among outcasts at Lowood School. It’s not until she comes to imposing Thornfield Hall and meets the intimidating Mr. Rochester that she begins to find some semblance of home. After finally, she thinks, creating a family of her own, she learns Mr. Rochester’s terrible secret (at the altar, no less). And then she’s cast out of the only home she’s ever known. Le sigh. Jane’s life is a series of sink or swims. But our Jane, she always swims. And she always grows stronger. Also, hello. Rochester. Original book boyfriend.

The Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri

As the title suggests, everyone in Jhumpa Lahiri's debut collection of stories is out of their element. In the title story, Indian Americans on holiday back in India spend a day out with a tour guide, a native Indian, himself thrown out of his comfort zone by what he sees as his sudden intimacy with the glamorous Americanized woman in his backseat, herself completely out of her element in her putative homeland. Other stories show the delicate dance between two worlds (one of them, or both of them, often bewildering) of immigrant Indians living in the US. Lahiri’s stories are less about grand transformation than confusion, misunderstanding, longing, and cracks in the heart. But there is something universal in these feelings—of being unmoored, of knowing where you are, but not where you fit—that these stories capture perfectly.

Saving Francesca, by Melina Marchetta

If anyone needs booting out of her comfort zone, it’s 16-year-old Francesca Spinnelli. She’s being suffocated it, by the casual cruelty of girls who have made her squash her authentic self. When Francesca winds up at Saint Sebastian’s, an all-boys school just gone co-ed, the timing wouldn’t seem ideal—her mother has just fallen into a major depression. Yet being in the school, among mostly boys, turns out to be just the shakeup Francesca needs to find the strength to deal with her home crisis and rediscover the person she was meant to be. Australian author Melina Marchetta is one of my favorite writers. I love all her books, but this is the one I’ll want my daughters to read first when they’re old enough.

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

The entire experience of reading the multiple, interweaving stories in Mitchell’s opus can be discomfiting (and exhilarating) in and of itself, and I found reading the book itself to be transformative. All of the stories of feature characters thrown out of their comfort zones: a sick young man harboring an escaped slave on a ship, a senior citizen incarcerated in a draconian nursing home, a young woman investigating a nuclear power plant. But perhaps no one is thrown out of her comfort zone like Somni 451, a genetically engineered fabricant (clone) in a dystopian future Korea who, suddenly, achieves consciousness. Her riveting story is the linchpin of this whole wondrous book. Which you should read it. And don’t tell me you’ve seen the movie. That doesn’t count. The movie didn’t come close to touching the book’s weird genius.

Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett

Pretty much everyone in Patchett’s novel is thrown out of their comfort zone after the guests at the ambassador of an unnamed South American’s country’s residence are taken hostage. It might sound like a tense thriller—and there are elements of that—but it’s really a series of love stories, between one of the captors and a quiet translator, between a star opera singer and the executive of a major electronics company, and between the “terrorists” and the hostages. Loyalties are tested, right alongside them, assumptions and suspicions. Music plays a major part, in bringing very different people together and, ultimately, transforming a hostage situation into something of a sanctuary. A heartbreaking, soul-lifting book.

Gayle Forman is the author of If I Stay, Where She Went, Just One Day, and others. She can be found online at her website, her blog, Facebook, and Twitter.

Previously:

Classic Revenge Stories: Five books that led the way for Karen Finneyfrock's The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door.

Dianne K. Salerni's Seven Favorite Gothic Novels.

Beth Revis' Top Ten Modern YA Science Fiction novels.

Ten Books that Shaped Laura Lam's Pantomime.

Madness, Tortured Romance, and a Heck of a Lot of Castles: Megan Shepherd's Love Affair with Gothic Literature... or, Megan Shepherd's Eight Favorite Gothics.

Lauren Roedy Vaughn's Five Favorite Literary Adult Mentors... Plus Two Characters Who Need One.