Friday, April 27, 2012

What is Zoë Marriott reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Zoë Marriott, author of Shadows on the Moon.

Her entry begins:
I'm the sort of person who inevitably leaves half-read books lying around everywhere, in the same way that a snail cannot help producing a silvery trail of slime. You can trace my path though life in piles of books on the stairs, stacked up next to my bed, balanced on the edge of the bath, forgotten between pots of herbs on the kitchen windowsill.

I recently finished reading - in one sitting no less! - an ARC of Sarah Rees Brennan's new YA novel Unspoken, which is a kind of modern Gothic mystery with added humour and fantasy elements. It had all the things I love about Diana Wynne Jones, like intriguing and subtle magic, jokes, twisting characterisation, and all the things I love about...[read on]
About Shadows on the Moon, from the publisher:
Sixteen-year-old Suzume is a shadow weaver, trained in the magical art of illusion. She can be anyone she wants to be -- except herself. Is she the girl of noble birth, trapped by the tyranny of her mother’s new husband, Lord Terayama? A lowly drudge scraping a living in the ashes of Terayama’s kitchens? Or Yue, the most beautiful courtesan in the Moonlit Lands? Even Suzume is no longer sure of her true identity. But she is determined to steal the heart of the Moon Prince, and exact revenge on her stepfather for the death of her family. And nothing will stop her. Not even her love for fellow shadow weaver Otieno, the one man who can see through her illusions...

Set in a faery tale version of ancient Japan, Shadows on the Moon shakes up the Cinderella story with its brave, resourceful and passionate heroine.

A powerful tale of magic, love, and revenge set in fairy-tale Japan.
Visit Zoë Marriott's website and blog.

Writers Read: Zoë Marriott.

--Marshal Zeringue