Fairy Revel

“On the Cover” is my weekly occasion to post an eye-catching cover. The covers I post may be from books I own, something I’ve recently wishlisted, or just a cool cover I really think everybody should see. Sometimes I may have something to say about the artwork itself, but I’m not an art major or anything so please keep that in mind; I’m just trying my best to get the idea across.

Return by Peter S. Beagle.

“Every adventure has a beginning and every truly great adventure has an ending.

In 1993 Peter S. Beagle, author of the beloved classic, The Last Unicorn, took an old song lyric of his and spun it into the Locus Award-winning fantasy The Innkeeper’s Song, an enchanting tale of three powerful women, each with a secret past, a stable boy, and an innkeeper who set in motion a series of events that bring them face to face with the forces of magic and the workings of fate.

Four years later Beagle took us back to their world in the World Fantasy Award nominated story collection, Giant Bones, and in the novella ‘Lal and Soukyan’ continued the adventures of two of his most-loved characters. In the decade that followed, Beagle touched on their world in powerful stories like ‘Quarry,’ ‘Chandail,’ ‘Barrens Dance,’ and ‘What Tune the Enchantress Plays.’

Now, after a hiatus of six years, he comes back to the story of Soukyan (once known as Nyateneri) in Return. Return is a major new fantasy novella in which Soukyan turns to face the evil he has fled for most of his adult life, finally confronting the powerful forces that both made him and that have tried so tirelessly to destroy him. The end of the adventure is nearly here….”

(It looks like the Cover Attractions meme is no longer happening, but that’s okay. I’ve been posting covers—oddly enough, on Wednesdays—since way back on an old blog of mine, so I’m going to keep up the habit.)

“On the Cover” is my weekly occasion to post an eye-catching cover. The covers I post may be from books I own, something I’ve recently wishlisted, or just a cool cover I really think everybody should see. Sometimes I may have something to say about the artwork itself, but I’m not an art major or anything so please keep that in mind; I’m just trying my best to get the idea across.

This time, I’m featuring two covers for the same book. I just couldn’t choose. I saw the UK cover first, and fell in love with the candy colors and the topsy-turvy through-the-looking-glass typeface:

I went searching for the book on Amazon, and found the US edition, which was so charming. It’s active and whimsical, and is more clearly Middle Grade fiction. The colors streaming through the glass onto the clever-looking little hero captivated my imagination and made me want to read the book, even though I don’t normally read in this age group.

Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones.

“Aidan Cain has had the worst week of his life. His gran died, he was sent to a foster home, and now malicious beings are stalking him. There is one person Gran told Aidan to go to if he ever got into trouble—a powerful sorcerer who lives at Melstone House.

But when Aidan arrives on the doorstep, he finds that the sorcerer’s grandson, Andrew, has inherited the house. The good news is that Aidan can tell immediately that Andrew’s brimming with magic, too—and so is everyone else at Melstone. The bad news is that Andrew doesn’t remember anything his grandfather taught him. Chaos is swiftly rising, and he has no idea how to control it. A sinister neighbor is stealing power from the land, magic is leaking between realms . . . and it’s only a matter of time before the Stalkers find Aidan.

If Aidan and Andrew can harness their own magics, they may be able to help each other. But can they do it before the entire countryside comes apart at the seams?”

Usually I don’t own the books I feature for Cover Attraction, but I’m so excited about this book I’m making an exception (and I may do so again in the future). This book was hard for me to get; after fighting gift-card wielding customers at Barnes & Noble, only to find it sold out not only at the store, but at the Barnes & Noble website, I had to get it on eBay. But I’m a fan, dang it, and this was the edition I wanted to read before reading The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Anyway . . .

Marcia at The Printed Page hosts Cover Attraction, a weekly occasion to post an eye-catching cover. Here is mine, The Complete Sherlock Holmes Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics Edition:

The Complete Sherlock Holmes Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Edition

This slightly fuzzy images shows the back, decorated with the plaque for 221b Baker Street, and other Sherlockian and Victorian objects, including a penny-farthing. The spine is decorated with the Hound of the Baskervilles.

The front and end-papers are decorated with tartan paper, and I fairly swooned when I saw it; it’s masculine and British and very appropriate. The page-edges are gilt and there’s a ribbon bookmark.

The book lacks illustrations and other distractions like spoilery annotations, so it’s perfect for my first read-through of the Sherlock Holmes series.