First of all, I don’t own boots like that, but I kinda wish I did. Owning boots like that would make me want to go out and hike up a mountain. Or pretend I hike up mountains. I don’t hike anywhere….
Last month, I told you about Literary Rambles in my first YA Walkabout. There were so many great links on that site that I found it crazy difficult to find just one to follow this month. But I ended up choosing an author I haven’t read yet, but will certainly pick up now that I know about her. Let’s go visit Leah Bobet this month!
Bobet is a Canadian author who writes literary science fiction and fantasy. Look at that gorgeous cover for her book, ABOVE, well…above. (Yes, it’s the CN Tower! Love it.) The premise?
Matthew’s father had lion’s feet and his mother had gills, and both fled the modern-day city to live in underground Safe, a secret community of freaks, ghost-whisperers, and disabled outcasts hidden beyond the subways and sewers. Raised underground, Matthew is responsible for the keeping of both Safe’s histories and the traumatized shapeshifter Ariel, the girl he took in, fell in love with – and can’t stop from constantly running away.
But Safe is no longer safe: the night after a frightening encounter in the sewers, Safe’s founder Atticus is murdered by the one person Safe ever exiled: mad Corner, whose coup is backed by an army of mindless, whispering shadows.
Only Matthew, Ariel, and a handful of unstable, crippled compatriots escape to the city that cast them out; the dangerous place he knows only as Above. Despite Ariel’s increasingly erratic behaviour and with the odds against them, Matthew must find a way to rescue Safe from Corner’s occupying army. But as his quest leads him through abandoned asylums and the dregs of urban poverty, Matthew discovers that the histories he’s devoted his life to aren’t true: Corner’s invasion — and Ariel’s terrors – are rooted in a history of Safe much darker and bloodier than Matthew ever imagined.
And even if he manages to save both home and Ariel, he may well lose himself.
Wow. Bobet thought she would become a musician as she headed out of high school, but her love of music wasn’t enough for her to really excel in that format (kudos to her for being so honest with herself), and she turned back to her love of writing. She is also a poet, and credits her love of music and the rhythmic sense of poetry to guiding her toward a very distinct voice. Don’t you love that? Always read your work out loud…I tell all of my writers at the library this regularly. It sounds very different out loud than it does inside your head.
Take a few minutes to go through her site. Her list of short fiction is impressive, and I’m thinking I’ll have to take in one of her appearances if I’m ever in TO when she’s speaking. You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter, too, so head on over and check her out.
Where will we go next time? Wait and see…..
