THE FACTORY: Cover reveal

Time to get excited about an upcoming book.

 

Let's get that buzz started! 

 

📘📘📘📘📘

Catherine Egan is the author of middle grade & young adult novels including Sneaks, The Witch's Child series (Julia Vanishes, Julia Defiant and Julia Unbound) and The Last Days of Tian Di series (Shade and Sorceress, The Unmaking, and Bone, Fog, Ash and Star).

 

Soon, Catherine Egan will have a new middle grade novel which will be coming out in January 2025. I'd like to help get everyone talking about this new book of speculative fiction for middle grade readers with this cover reveal.

Voila!

THE FACTORY

Written by Catherine Egan

Scholastic

978-1339034218

336 pp.

Ages 8-12

January 7 2025 

 

• • • • • • •

 

Here is a blurb about The Factory from Catherine Egan herself:

 

You make a bargain—this for that.
You think you know what you're giving up, what the risks are, and you believe the payoff will be worth it.
Some bargains are riskier than others.
Some payoffs are hard to resist.
But what if there’s a lie at the heart of the bargain? What if you’re wrong about the thing you’re giving up?

Welcome to The Factory.

Meet Asher Doyle: He made this bargain to save his mother. A dreamer with problems of his own at school, he thinks the Factory might be the answer. But he was specially recruited, and the question of who wants him here and why becomes more and more pressing.  

 
Meet Faith Ford: She made this bargain to save her family. Smart and determined, Faith thinks she can tough it out, power through, like she always does. She's wrong this time.

 
Meet Troy Sanchez: He made this bargain to save his brother. A gentle soul, Troy is nonetheless a survivor, but the price he pays will be greater than any of them, and the Factory might be one thing he can't survive.

 
Meet Violet Shu: She made this bargain to save herself. Vi is a force to be reckoned with. She doesn't wait for the fight to come to her—she brings it. Also, if anyone messes with Troy, she will end them.

Every day the kids at the Factory are shut in Extraction Containers as part of a highly classified experiment in harvesting electromagnetic energy from the human body. A risk, a bargain. The process is terrifying, but the payoff is huge. They all signed up for this. They all have their reasons. They are desperate, and this might be their only chance to change their circumstances. But the machines aren't really extracting electromagnetic energy. So what is being extracted?

Asher. Faith. Troy. Vi.
They team up to figure out the real cost of the bargain they've made.
But they're running out of time.

My new middle-grade novel THE FACTORY will be out January 2025 and I am so excited to share this creepy, evocative cover with you all - I GASPED when I first saw it! The artwork is by the brilliant Angelo Rinaldi (https://www.artistpartners.com/portfolios/angelo-rinaldi/). Much more to come, but keep your eyes out for THE FACTORY next winter! 

~ Catherine Egan

• • • • • • •

From the cover and Catherine Egan's blurb, there is much promise in The Factory for an epic read of speculative fiction for middle grade readers. Only 7+ months until its release! So put it on your TBR list and/or pre-order it to ensure you have your copy to visit The Factory in January 2025.

• • • • • • •

Julia Defiant: The Witch's Child Book 2

Written by Catherine Egan

Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

978-0-553-53335-4

464 pp.

Ages 14+

June, 2017

Julia Defiant, the sequel to Catherine Egan's Julia Vanishes (2016), the first book in her Witch's Child series, is as epic a fantasy as all her books.  There are battles of good vs. evil for power but amidst so much deception that it is hard to tell whom to trust, and Julia, who is still blaming herself for her role in the kidnapping of young Theo, doesn't even know if she can trust herself to do the right thing.

The core cast of characters from Julia Vanishes are still aiding and abetting Julia, the Fraynish girl who can vanish as well as  transport herself between locations and into a dark and burning other world called Kahge. Mrs. Och, one of the three immortal Xianren who’d been tasked with guarding and keeping separate the fragments of The Book of Disruption to prevent the overflow of magic, is leading the group in search of a monk named Ko Dan.  It is hoped that they can enlist Ko Dan to undo the magic he used to transfer the fragment of Gennady, another Xianren, into his baby son.   Theo, not yet two, does not know that he is at the centre of it all, with the third Xianren, Casimir, determined to reassemble the book and reestablish their immortality.

Mrs. Och’s plan is for the group to separate in Tianshi, the capital of Yongguo, and learn what they can. Julia resides with Mrs. Och, Theo and the boy’s mother, the witch Bianka, and Frederick the scholar in the modest Nanmu Triangle, while Julia’s brother Dek and her former lover Wyn live in the seedier Dongshui Triangle.  The others, Julia’s thieving compatriots–Esme, Gregor, Csilla–as well as the learned Professor Baranyi, pose as members of an aristocratic household in the Xihuo Triangle.

While their task is simple enough–find Ko Dan and save Theo from the fragment within him–there is much to learn, primarily about and by Julia.  When permission is granted by the grand librarian, Si Tan, for them to visit the Imperial Library, the search is on for clues to Ko Dan’s whereabouts but also, Julie learns when vanished, into Kahge and Julia’s powers.  At the Imperial Library, she is accosted by a witch who works magic on her, flooding her with visions, possibly memories, including one in which her mother worked with a two-spouted pot, similar to one she’d observed in a painting of the witch Marike.  This pot which she later learns is called the Ankh-nu may be a key to Julia’s heritage.

But Julia’s wanderings as she vanishes about Yongguo and into the horrific world of Kahge bring her more questions, though rarely answers.  Who is Lidari and why do the creatures of Kahge call out to Julia with this name?  Who is the Fraynish girl obviously under protection in the monastery?  And the biggest question is: Who can she trust? Mrs. Och who seems to want to help Bianka and Theo but shamelessly pulls life forces from Bianka and Frederick to strengthen herself?  The young man Jun to whom she is attracted and who has come to her rescue?  Her brother Dek who is acting less like himself because of the freedoms he now has in Yongguo?  Or Pia, the assassin who sees herself in Julia, knowing how they’ve been treated and the life Julia could have under Casimir’s contract?  Can Julia even trust herself to be there to save Theo when she’s already let him down at least once?

The constraints of a single post for a review of Julia Defiant suggest the story is much less than it is.  This space is far too meagre for me to acquaint the reader with its plot and still find room to applaud it sufficiently.  The plot and myriad of subplots, as well as rich contingent of characters, both of Frayne and Yongguo and Kahge, are too much for these few words.  I desperately want to tell you of Ragg Rock and her bunny; Silver Moya, Count Fournier and Princess Zara; the telling of stories to Theo; Dek’s new life with Ling; adorable Theo as he learns to walk, talk and do magic; and so much more.  This is especially so as it is all told in the opulent prose of Catherine Egan who can make everything sound, read bigger and better and more.

Stars, this boy.  Handsome, mysterious, quick on his feet, and now sweet.  I struggle not to give him a melty look. (pg. 81)

Even crushing on a boy reads powerfully.  This is how Catherine Egan writes. Every word is authoritative and woven with magic to create worlds that may have familiar elements–there is definitely an Asian feel to the world of Yongguo with its names, dress and customs–but are so distinct and extraordinary that nothing compares.  All I can say is that, having introduced Julia in Julia Vanishes, Catherine Egan's second book brings Julia into worlds where she can define herself and her power, so that she is never inconsequential again.  She will only vanish when she so chooses, making Julia Defiant fantastic in more ways than one. 

Julia Vanishes

Written by Catherine Egan

Alfred A. Knopf

978-0-553-52484-0

375 pp.

Ages 12-17

2016

I’ve always been on the Catherine Egan-bandwagon, an auspicious venue for readers of fabulous fantasy and struggles in other worlds. The Last Days of Tian Di, her trilogy  (Shade and Sorceress, 2012; The Unmaking, 2013: Bone, Fog, Ash & Star, 2014), took readers to imaginary lands of  Mancers, Faeries and Sorceresses and an exceptional evil vs. good conflict.  But now I’ve joined the ranks of fans of her Witch’s Child series, debuted with Julia Vanishes, who’ve recognized Catherine Egan’s latest high fantasy as something truly special, not unlike Julia herself.

Whilst miscellaneous persons are being murdered and their brains messed with after encountering a mysterious woman and her baby Theo, sixteen-year-old Julia works reconnaissance as the housemaid Ella at the home of the elderly and wealthy Mrs. Och.  After Julia’s mother Ammi was drowned as a witch in one of Prime Minister Agoston Horthy’s ritual Cleansings of those practising outlawed element worship and magic, Julia and her older brother Dek, a great mechanical tinkerer, were taken in by Esme who runs the criminal underworld. As part of Esme’s band of crooks, which includes Gregor and Csilla and Julia’s love interest, the artistic Wyn, Julia has been charged with staking out Mrs. Och’s household from within, watching the lady herself, as well as her guests Professor Baranyi, who had once been in prison for his heretical writings and continues to dabble in mysterious work with his assistant Frederick, and Mr. Darius whose bizarre behaviour and entrapment in the cellar draws her curiosity.  Thankfully Julia has an inane ability to vanish, to be unseen.

“There is a space I can step into, a space between being myself in the world and I know not what, where people’s eyes simply pass over me.” (pg. 7)

Julia’s vanishings allow her to learn of Mrs. Och’s smuggling of witches, and of strange experiments on the kind Mr. Darius, and of concerns that the murders and other mysterious goings-on indicate a search for  someone or something.  When Julia reports to their client, Pia, a cagey woman in goggle spectacles, that Mrs. Och has two new house guests, Bianka Betine and her young child, Theo, Julia becomes enmeshed in a dangerous plot that pays phenomenally well but costs her much in self-respect and remorse and leads her to face evil, both inside and out.

It is so easy to get swept up in the world of Spira City (a map is included and necessary) and beyond, a world of magic and subterfuge, witches and immortals.  There is menace and kindness, compassion and cruelty, and the difference is not always clear. Catherine Egan, who knows a few things about writing of evil and villains (see her guest post here), riddles her evocative and atmospheric writing with characters, like Julia, who appear to bridge that continuum of good vs. evil–yes, even Julia has some things of which she is not proud–making them as real as you and me but in a world of fantasy where writings can become wishes and owls can become cats.  Her characters are exceptional for their diversity and natures, and her plotting has the highs of turrets and the depths of dungeons, the twists of secret staircases and darkness, so much darkness.  But it is Catherine Egan’s writing that draws me in so fully.  It’s rich in the textures of shadows and excitement, going far beyond words into realms of new worlds.

“A hand jerks his head up by the hair.  A wetness at his forehead, a spreading blackness.  He thinks of struggle, but fleetingly, as if from a great distance–already this sudden, brutal ending has become part of somebody else’s story.” (pg. 28)

“When Wyn draws the Twist, he makes all the ugliness, filth, and poverty beautiful somehow–this is his gift, his magic: to transform with love.  And he works his magic on me as well, so that when he touches me, my horrible dress and uncombed hair are nothing, nothing at all to the beauty he draws forth.  I am not the same Julia–motherless, broke, badly dressed, a crook.  In his arms, for a short while at least, I am perfect.” (pg. 87)

From the depths of cruelty to the sublime of love, Catherine Egan writes with a fluid pen and transports readers to worlds where magic is possible. Thankfully Julia Vanishes is but the beginning of that story. Julia Defiant, out in June 2017, will carry us further.

Villains: Guest post by author Catherine Egan

I am quite thrilled to be helping author Catherine Egan launch Bone, Fog, Ash & Star, the final book of The Last Days of Tian Di series, with a review yesterday and a guest post today. Today's post, Isn't he scary? Isn't he beautiful? will be the first in her blog-series about villains. Check in at her blog for more details about these posts, including a giveaway that will accompany each.

Catherine Egan grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and wrote her first novel at age 6. It was about a group of kids on a farm who ran races. Each chapter ended with “Cathy won the race again!” Since then, she has lived in Oxford, Tokyo, Kyoto, a volcanic Japanese island that erupted and sent her hurtling straight into the arms of her now-husband, Beijing, an oil rig in China’s Bohai Bay, and now Connecticut, where she is still writing books (but Cathy doesn’t win every race anymore). Her first novel, Shade & Sorceress, won a 2013 Moonbean Children’s Book Award (Gold) and was named an Ontario Library Association Best Bet for 2012 in the Young Adult Fiction category.

You can connect with Catherine Egan through these social media links:

Website: www.catherineegan.com
Blog: bycatherineegan.wordpress.com
Twitter: @bycatherineegan
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/byCatherineEgan

Now, I welcome author Catherine Egan. 

Isn't he scary? Isn't he beautiful?

by Catherine Egan

I was sitting at the big kitchen table writing, because that’s what I like to do, and my three-year-old was sitting next to me sticking toothpicks in a lump of play-doh, because that’s what he likes to do. He showed me his creation and said, “Look, it’s a spiky monster!” Of course it was a monster. He is all about monsters. Looking over his toothpick-spiked play-doh monster with immense satisfaction, he said: “Isn’t he scary? Isn’t he beautiful?” Yes, I said, yes, he is both of those things.

The first germ of an idea for the Tian Di books began with Eliza (my beloved heroine) and Nia (my beloved villain) in conversation and in conflict. I knew that they were in some kind of prison, but I didn’t yet know how they got there or even really who they were. Still, much of the scene I wrote is right there, barely changed, near the end of the the first book:

“Look at you,” said Nia with an affectionate little smile, not putting down her teacup. “Adorable! A child with the barest smidgen of Magic and the sad delusion that you could last five seconds against me.” She stood up and bent close to Eliza. Eliza could smell the sugary tea on her breath. “Well, little smidgen, you’ve come running straight into the only place left where I still have power, eager as anything, and now that you’re here, what fun we’re going to have!”

Nia was wonderfully freeing to write. Every scene she was in came so easily. She could say or do anything. I wanted her to be sympathetic but monstrous at the same time, and whether or not I succeeded for the reader I can’t say, but for myself, she was pure joy to write. I felt about her just as my little boy felt about his spiky play-doh monster. Isn’t she terrible? Isn’t she wonderful?

The best villains terrify us, yes, but they beguile us too. In the ultimate Good vs. Evil story, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan is so charismatic – his rage, rebelliousness and pride providing all the best poetry – that William Blake claimed Milton was “of the Devil’s party without knowing it.” While the Emperor in the original Star Wars trilogy is perhaps the truer villain, the movies are dominated by the terrifying figure of Darth Vader, who represents not only a physical threat but a spiritual one – the dark, seductive power Luke must resist, the evil good men fall may fall prey to. Volde… sorry, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named is and will remain the uber-villain for generations of young readers – and he is all the more horrifying because he is so deeply connected to our beloved hero Harry. They may be complex, comic, or simply terrifying, but they captivate us, these villains. Think of Lady MacBeth, unable to scrub the blood from her hands; the murderous Captain Hook, smoking two cigars at once; Dracula, the bloodthirsty (sorry) seducer, setting off a love affair with vampire literature that has lasted more than a hundred years; Bluebeard with his roomful of murdered wives; the wicked witches and vicious stepmothers that make fairytales such dark fare; the Big Bad Wolf – as primal as it gets – all those teeth! The mad, the miserable, the megalomaniacal and the vengeful – villains have a way of swaggering onto the page (or the screen) and taking over.

The villain comes along and says to the hero: OK, now you have to be the hero, because here I am. Or maybe the villain whispers in the hero’s ear: You think you are the hero, but are you, really? Deep down, aren’t you just like me? Maybe the villain says, suddenly, at some crucial point in the story: Actually I am your father / mother / sister / lover – surprise! And then you (the hero) have to figure out what to do with that tangle of love and fear, of loathing and longing. Maybe the villain just thinks you look tasty and wants to gobble you up or drink your blood, and maybe some part of you actually takes that as a compliment, which is weird, but people are  weird. Maybe the villain is so unrepressed, so powerful, gleeful and sexy and leaving destruction in his or her wake, that you wish… I mean not really but you sort of wish that you could be like that too. That you didn’t care so much. That you didn’t feel so much.

It can be simpler than all that, of course. Maybe when the Big Bad Wolf opens his jaws and you see those rows of teeth, it is like staring at death, but at a remove – because this is a book, or a movie, or maybe your grandma is telling you the story, but anyway, it’s not real. That’s what you keep telling yourself under the covers at bedtime – it’snotrealit’snotrealit’snotreal – but you see this shadow move across the wall and you think you can hear something breathing.

I don’t have any grand philosophy about villains. I just love to write them, and I love to read them, and I recognize the same shivery pleasure in my children when we read some horrible tale and they huddle saucer-eyed on either side of me. Sometimes I’ll think, hmm, maybe this is a little too much, but we get to the end and I look at them and they look at me and they whisper: Read it again.

So I do.

 * * * * * 
This is the first in a blog-series about villains – you can follow along by checking my blog http://bycatherineegan.wordpress.com next week. Each post will include a giveaway. Let me know in the comments: who are your favorite fictional villains? Choose villains from books / movies / comic books / TV – just not real life! A winner will be selected by random number generator (I’ll post a screenshot) and I will send you a book bundle – all three books in The Last Days of Tian Di series – chock-a-block with villains and their villainy.

-Catherine Egan

Bone, Fog, Ash & Star: The Last Days of Tian Di, Book Three

Written by Catherine Egan

Coteau Books

978-1-55050-593-1 (pbk)

978-1-55050-594-8 (pdf)

312 pp.

Ages 9+

For release October 2014

When Catherine Egan began her high fantasy series The Last Days of Tian Di with Shade &Sorceress (Coteau, 2012), everything was new to twelve-year-old Eliza Tok: who: learns she is the Shang Sorceress, as were her mother and grandmother; discovers her Magic; clashes with the Nia, the entrapped Xia Sorceress; befriends Charlie, the shape-shifting Shade; and connects with Faeries, Mancers, Witches, Cra, Dragons,and other assorted characters.

Now turning 16, Eliza continues to study Magic with the Mancer Foss in the Great Sand Sea, the home of her father's people, the Sorma. After The Unmaking (Coteau, 2013), Eliza is loathe to have any part of the Mancers at the Citadel, most especially Kyreth whose aim has been to control her and her powers. Unfortunately, Kyreth has other plans, including sending fog-like assassins, the Thanatosi, to murder Charlie and force Eliza back to the Citadel, where he would orchestrate her marriage to a Mancer and ensure an heir, a new Shang Sorceress.

To keep Charlie safe (though he has now lost his ability to shape shift), Foss and Eliza take him and Nell to the Realm of the Faeries where Jalo, a Faery smitten with Nell, gives them sanctuary. Too bad Jalo's mother, Tariro, hates humans and is determined to murder Nell to keep her son away from her.

Foss and Eliza return to the Citadel, with Eliza ready to take on the war they've chosen with her.  Even with a new Supreme Mancer, Aysu, Eliza realizes that Kyreth is still at work.  Exploring, she discovers her grandmother and Kyreth's wife, Selva, alive but under a Curse. Granddaughter and grandmother help each other and Eliza is sent to gather the Four Gifts of the Ancients, the Gehemmis, one of which Selva had been stealing when cursed.

So begins Eliza's newest quest, to retrieve the four Gehemmis and learn of the Magic contained within, and to find her future, wherever or with whomever it may rest.

If Shade and Sorceress is all about newness, and The Unmaking looking deeper into those that appear to be good or evil, then Bone, Fog, Ash & Star is about loss.  It's about making choices that may cause pain to others or heartbreak to one's self, that may confuse or antagonize those who are your allies, and may result in turning one's back on the innocence and trust of youth.  While Eliza grows into herself as a Shang Sorceress, finally recognizing the Magic she can accomplish and the hard choices she must make, she has lost some of the wonder of her youth, the wonder that allowed her to share in new worlds wholeheartedly, regardless of the possible dangers.

"You don't remember the loss, not exactly, but you cling to those you love with such ferocity, you would die for them, because the memory of the first loss is buried within you, and it defines you." (pg. 240)

Nia may be pointing out Eliza's loss but others in Bone, Fog, Ash & Star will undergo similar experiences, ranging from small sacrifices and mishaps to life-altering ruin and the ultimate loss, death.  Nell, who'd been amazed at the grandeur of the Faery Realm's Illusions, begins to lose some of her wonder of the supernatural. Charlie, who loses that which defined him as a Shade, must find a way to reconcile that loss with what is left for him to be.  There's the Blind Enchanter who gave up his sight and song for seeing the Sparkling Deluder. And Rea, Eliza's mother, who gave up and still gives something important up to be with her husband.  Loss is the substance of life. It is only luck that keeps it at bay as long as possible. Or the pen of a true spellbinder, like Catherine Egan.

Though Catherine Egan does provide a short epilogue with a joyous scene to close The Last Days of Tian Di, the reader will also feel a great loss. It's inevitable. We've followed and cheered for Eliza, afraid for her goodness and choices, and longing for the love she feels to be realized.  After travelling alongside this young Shang Sorceress and woman through three epic volumes, we can only hope that her unwritten life is as prodigious as this written one has been.  For that, we can only thank Catherine Egan for the courtesy she has extended to us in sharing it.

*  *  *  *  * *  *
Check in tomorrow when CanLit for LittleCanadians welcomes author Catherine Egan for a guest post about villains titled, "Isn't he scary?  Isn't he beautiful?"

Now you have to read the whole series, don't you think?

The Unmaking: The Last Days of Tian Di, Book Two

Written by Catherine Egan

Coteau Books

978-1-55050-559-7

248 pp.

Ages 9+

September, 2013

Epic. That's what The Unmaking, Catherine Egan's sequel to Shade and Sorceress, the first book in her The Last Days of Tian Di series, is.  Epic. When I reviewed Shade and Sorceress (here) over a year ago, I knew that I was reading something special.  I compared it to Harry Potter.  The Unmaking is even stronger: in its writing, its plotting, its ability to snatch the reader away from reality and deliver him or her to a land of magic, curses, faeries, dragons, sorceresses, wizards, shape-shifters, and ordinary humans.  Hold on for a fantasy ride like no other.

When Shade and Sorceress ended, Eliza was still being schooled as the next Shang Sorceress by her grandfather Kyreth and the other Mancers at the Citadel.  Her mother, Rea, the former Shang Sorceress, has returned, without any memory, and lives with Eliza's father, Rok, with his people, the Sorma. And although Nia, the evil Xia Sorceress, got her hands on the Book of Barriers, she is still trapped in her Arctic prison. Or she was. Now she's out for revenge.

Not surprising that Nia seeks out the Triumvira, consisting of the Oracle of the Ancients, the King of Faeries and Swarn, the Warrior Witch, who had banished Nia to her prison. But her revenge also includes Kyreth, revealing her previously unknown relationship to the Supreme Mancer. (You'll need to read the book for that detail!)  Having been visiting first Swarn to learn of potions, forging weapons and deflecting barrier, and then the Oracle, Eliza returns to the Citadel to find the Mancers turned to stone and Nia releasing a hideous creature of her own Making (an Ancient power).  Nia's monster, created from the finger she sliced from Rea's hand, is a formidable foe, and Eliza must find a way of neutralizing it before it goes after her mother.

Sadly, Charlie, Eliza's Shade companion, is seriously injured and Nell, Eliza's human friend, enlists the help of the helicopter-flying police constable, Ander, to deliver him to the Cave of Healing.  In Tian Xia, they find the evidence of Nia's revenge: Swarn's house burning, slaughtered dragons, and the ruins of the temples of the Faithful.  They also make the acquaintance of a Faery, Jalo, who has been sent by the King of Faeries to retrieve the Oracle and Swarn to protect them from the Xia Sorceress.

But, Nia is already moving onto the Realm of the Faeries, intent on destroying Malferio, their King and her former consort. Because of the King's purges of his subjects and his dastardly deeds against others, including his current Queen, Nia is able to convince others to assist in overthrowing him.

It must be a faery illusion that Catherine Egan manages to squeeze a tale of such epic proportions into a mere 268 pages. My bare bones synopsis here doesn't even mention Eliza working with a wizard who is cursed to forget everything he knows every 29 minutes; the baby dragon that Nell is relentless about saving; Jalo's manipulative mother who worries about her son's interest in Nell; and Swarn's battle with Nia in the Hall of the Ancients.

The battle of good vs. evil may be the foundation of The Unmaking but there are so many layers of skirmishes and antagonisms as well as alliances and allegiances that enrich that theme, not the least of which is the question of who is bad or good.  As the story develops, beyond even those few layers, so too do the motives of the characters, transformed with new experiences and revelations.

There are not enough words to provide a complete review of Catherine Egan's The Unmaking.  When you enjoy it, you'll understand my failing here.  Epic is still the best descriptor.

Shade and Sorceress: The Last Days of Tian Di, Book I

Written by Catherine Egan
Coteau Books
978-1550-505146
279 pp.
Ages 10+
September, 2012

It's wonderful getting into a new book and, as you're reading, you realize that it's captivating you the way the Harry Potter series did: anticipating the next turn in the plot or another unknown fantastical creature with crafty powers, or delivery to a world where the laws of nature need not hold true.  Shade and Sorceress continued to surprise me with unexpected plotting, ultimately leaving me waiting for next book in The Last Days of Tian Di series and hopefully answers to a few surprise questions at the book's conclusion.

Tian Di, the One World, was the fantastical world in which humans were slaves to the Faeries; that is, until the Mancers, scholars of that world, used magic to begin its ongoing separation into Di Shang, the land of humans and beasts, and Tian Xia, the home of the beings of power.  Not surprising that the arrival of five emissary Mancers to Holburg, the island home of twelve-year-old Eliza Tok, would cause such a stir, especially when they arrive on dragons.  On behalf of the Supreme Mancer, Kyreth, these emissaries have come to take Eliza back to their Citadel to begin her studies for her position as Shang Sorceress, the role her mother Rea held until she eloped with a human, Eliza's father, Rom Tok.  Determined to protect her daughter, Rea had used Magic to hide Eliza, although Rea was killed in assisting the Mancers and their allies to entrap the Xia Sorceress in the Arctic.

Although she enjoys learning, Eliza demonstrates no magical powers, except when Kyreth puts her in the life-threatening position of guarding the Crossing between the two worlds.  Eliza learns that her father has been taken by the Cra, the bird-like creatures of the Xia Sorceress, to the Arctic and will only be released if Eliza brings the Sorceress the Mancers' Book of Barriers.  With Charlie, who Eliza sees as a thirteen-year-old boy, though he is a shape-shifting Shade, and Nell, her human friend from Holburg, Eliza sets out to save her father by heading to Tian Xia to seek out the Triumvira, the 3 beings who banished the Sorceress to the Arctic.

Much illusion is used in Shade and Sorceress to hide that which is real and construct that which is imagined but the relationships upon which all plot lines rely are quite genuine.  There are parents protecting their children, lovers who betray, friends who offer unconditional support, prejudice based on power, new allies from nebulous connections, and deception by so many.  The wealth of characters and the nature of their gifts, against a backdrop of caves, carved, black cliffs, ravening forests, hanging gardens, a dead marsh, arctic tundra, temples, a crystal city and all landscapes and structures in between, make an auspicious introduction to The Last Days of Tian Di series.  Fortunately, Catherine Egan, Canadian-born author currently living in New Jersey, neither leaves the reader frustrated with an incomplete ending or a neatly resolved storyline.  With Shade and Sorceress, young readers, not just young adults, are promised a refreshingly new fantasy series that is otherworldy but devoid of vampires.