BLOOD MAGIC by Tessa Gratton (or a post in which I admit I'm a crazy fangirl)

WARNING: Content shows fangirlying of epic proportions. You have been warned.

Once upon a time (a little over two years ago) I was having a BAD day. You guys, this day sucked royally and went right on sucking into the night where I sat in my room, at my computer, bitter and alone. Will was working late, late, late. The girls, practically babies back then, were finally asleep - or else they'd knocked each other unconscious in their usual bedtime fighting - I was too grumpy to check. That night, I was wallowing in my bad-day misery pretty hardcore.

Now, I'm a firm believer in the whole 'every cloud has a silver lining' thing, and I typically find my silver lining when I'm shopping online. This day was no different, but what to shop for, what to shop for?

A book - that's what. But not just any book - I wanted an incredibly fantastic faery story - something modern yet fantasy, something a wee bit gory, definitely creepy, dark yet funny... Oh yeah, and it had to be YA fiction. I had no idea where to even begin searching for a book such as this.

And then I stumbled upon the blog belonging to the Merry Sisters of Fate.

If you aren't familiar with this blog, let me fill you in: FANTASTIC FREE FICTION. Short stories posted regularly by three gals with a love for all things magic and creepy, dark yet funny. Fantasy, fairy tales, monsters (OH MY!)... I could go on forever.

I spent the rest of the night reading story after story by Maggie Stiefvater, Brenna Yovanoff and Tessa Gratton - made my feel-good purchase when I saw that Ms. Stiefvater had a published book called Lament, about homicidal faeries and an evil queen (O_O!!!) and I thought: this BETTER be good.

Uh. Yeah. The book came in the mail a couple days later. Good ended up being a bit of an understatement. Though she might tell you otherwise, I'm pretty sure Maggie wrote this book specifically for me.

- insert fangirlying of epic proportions -
(this includes but is not limited to me jumping up and down, hands flapping, eyes twitching, and OH EM GEE, OH EM GEE, OH EM GEE repeated for dayz)

I decided then and there that these three gals would share my fangirlying equally because if I focused my attentions on one of them specifically, I'd probably end up with a restraining order. Well, okay, not a real one, but they might block my IP address or something, so they wouldn't have to deal with my embarrassing amounts of fawning. Actually, that's not true. I mostly fangirl from afar with an occasional OMG I WANT TO BE YOU GUYS WHEN I GROW UP! thrown into a blog comment or tweet. But still.

Maggie's other books came out - all fantastic (you might be familiar with Shiver - a NYT bestseller for a billion consecutive weeks). Brenna's book The Replacement came out - also a NYT bestseller (if you haven't read it, go on!)

And now, coming May 24, 2011:

If you haven't guessed yet that I'm excited about this book, let me go on and tell ya:

I'M EXCITED ABOUT THIS BOOK!

Only two more weeks to wait, but until then, here is a book trailer to whet your appetite.



I know. That was blood. Blood Magic features BLOOD.

And if you would like a little sample of Tessa's beautiful (and creepy FTW!) writing, check out my favorite short story of hers:

PUDDLES <- click that.

You guys, if you haven't read a book by one of the three Merry Sisters, don't follow my example and wait for a terrible day to do it. Do it now! You don't need to be a young adult to love and adore YA fiction. You do, however, have to be awesome -- are you up to the challenge?

And if you want a chance to win an advanced reading copy of Blood Magic, hop on over to the blog of Natalie C Parker and enter her contest. (I'm totally on it)

Happy Tuesday, folks!

xoxo,