The Griffins Have Escaped! Everybody Panic!

Hello hello hello!

Look at this BEAUTIFUL BOOK!  Isn’t it glorious?  Don’t you want it, even without knowing anything about it?  😉

Well, you’re in luck, because it’s coming out TODAY!  March 12!  Happy book birthday to The Menagerie!  Hooray!  Everyone stampede over to your nearest bookstore and buy it!  (Or, of course, you can do that here, here, or here!)

I can’t believe I actually managed to blog about a book coming out on the actual day it’s coming out.  You know how this miracle occurred?  Because I actually thought it came out two weeks ago, and I just finished and turned in a manuscript on Friday, so I was like, “ack, now that I have a minute to think, I’d better run over to the blog and post about The Menagerie!” and it’s a total coincidence that the timing magically brought me here on the same day as the book’s birthday.

But then, it’s a magical book, so I shouldn’t be surprised!  🙂  You guys, I love this book.  I love it like I love my dragon books — I love the cover (how did I get lucky enough to have wonderful covers on two series at once all of a sudden?), I’m so excited about the story, and I LOOOOOOOVED working on it with my sister.

Yup, in case you were wondering about that other name on the cover, that’s my marvelous perfect sister I’ve been talking about since the very first posts on this blog almost seven years ago.  🙂  (Goodness, rereading those is so weird!)

So, extremely thrillingly, Kari and I have written a book together!  Actually, a trilogy (well, book 3 is in progress!) — book one is out now, book two will be available (I assume) in March 2014, and book three the year after that.

It all started with Kari casually mentioning that she had an idea for a book about a secret zoo of mythical creatures — to which I immediately went, “OOOOO I LOVE IT CAN I STEAL IT?” and she was like, “um, OK, sure,” and then I said, “OR we could write it TOGETHER OOOOOOO” and the rest is (or will be) literary history.  😉

Imagine you’re a boy named Logan, who’s just moved to a small town in Wyoming, and then one day you find a griffin cub under your bed . . . who leads you to a secret zoo called the Menagerie, where you find bad-tempered unicorns, temperamental dragons, and one rather melodramatic phoenix, among other mysterious things.

Or imagine you’re a girl named Zoe, whose family has run the Menagerie for generations, taking care of all the mythical animals and keeping them secret . . . but now the six griffin cubs have escaped, and it might be your fault, and you have to get them back before anyone sees them or the SuperNatural Animal Protection Agency shuts you down.

What happens next?  Read the book to find out!  It’s a mystery (it’s a few mysteries!) and an adventure story and hopefully it’s funny, too — we had a lot of fun writing it, and I really hope you like it, too!

(And hi, Kari!  Look, I posted about the book the day it came out!  Aren’t you impressed?  Now you have to tweet about it!)  (Oh, right — anyone who’s on Twitter, you can follow Kari at @KariSutherland or here (which is how I with no Twitter account follow her).)  (Is that the right way to promote her Twitterness?  I don’t know my Twittiquette at all!)  (But I do know that Twittiquette is an excellent word which I’m sure I can’t be the first to have invented.)

OK, I’m off to try to update other parts of the site if I can remember how (brain full of dragons, no room for WordPress!), but happy reading, and happy March, and happy book birthday, Menagerie!  Yay!

Quote of the Day:
“Do you know, I always thought unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!”
“Well, now that we have seen each other,” said the unicorn, “if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you.”
Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll