This Is the Maddest Merriest Day Of All the Glad New Year

So it is my birthday – another step towards fabulous old-lady sleuthdom! Last year I spent my birthday with my best friend in Japan, this year I spend it in New England Chez Black. I have good luck with birthdays.

The Smart Chicks tour was lots of fun, and to everyone who came: thank you! I now miss the other Smart Chicks authors, though. So many stories! So many excellent people! I do feel this picture sums up my behaviour on the tour however.

SRB: Muahaha! I have the microphone! Nobody shall take it away from me! I feel so gleeful! And so evil. I feel so gleevil!
HOLLY BLACK: Ahahaha, what is she saying? She is raving. Maybe she will eat the microphone next!
CASSANDRA CLARE: I do not even know what to say. 😐

Or possibly my behaviour is summed up as follows: How I Shamed The Smart Chicks Forever

In other news, YA Book Reads are having a Sarah Rees Brennan week. That’s me, y’all! I feel fancy.

And now for something completely different: what will be on the back (well, on the inside cover, but on the back if it wasn’t a hardback) of the third Demon’s Lexicon book.

The Goblin Market, where lives are won and lost and magic is bought and sold, has always been the center of Sin’s world. Now the war between magicians and the Market is escalating, and her position as future leader of the Market is threatened by a rival. Sin knows Mae can never really take control of the Market: Mae is a tourist and her brother Jamie is not only a powerful magician but the Aventurine Circle’s newest and deadliest weapon. But as the Market gains strange new allies, support for Mae is growing, and Sin’s only chance of leading the Market is to accomplish an impossible task.

Among the most dangerous of the Market’s allies are the enigmatic Ryves brothers: Nick, who was once more than Sin’s friend and whose demonic nature she cannot forget, and Alan, who has always been Sin’s enemy and who she now owes a debt she cannot repay. Even as their unlikely band discovers common ground and new feelings arise between them, Sin realizes the brothers pose a greater danger than she dreamed. Alan is marked – and being tortured – by the magicians, and Nick seems to be working for them.

When Sin’s family secrets are revealed, Alan’s plans are rendered useless and betrayal comes from someone they trusted, a terrible sacrifice has to be made if anyone is going to survive the final battle.

The demon’s surrender could destroy them all.