Blog Tour Giveaways

The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland Blog Tour: Excerpt & Giveaway

Today, we are thrilled to host a stop on the blog tour for the UK release of The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two by the incomparable Catherynne M. Valente. We are huge fans of Cat’s work, especially the fairyland books – and this third installment is no exception (Ana loved it).

The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland (UK Edition) Catherynne Valente

And now, without further ado, we’re very excited to present our excerpt from The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two!

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The Excerpt:

Everything You Have @ Ana Juan

“I want to go to Fairyland.”

The Blue Wind tapped the dashboard impatiently. “She’s very stubborn on that point, brother. Dense as a foot, this one. Personally, I detest Fairyland. Something is always brewing there, some frantic task that simply must be done, some despot who cannot be borne another moment, some bauble that demands fetching. It’s exhausting! Wouldn’t you rather have a nice race across Antarctica instead? Or a Grand Tour of the Gulf Stream? We could skip stones across the North Pole. Besides, no one ever asks me to go running off on a grand adventure. No one ever says: Blue, darling, wouldn’t you like to go away to Fairyland and skate on the clouds there? One does like to be asked.”

But the squat Wind had already plucked a silvery, iridescent moon from his coat, a crescent hanging from a fine chain. Ruby starlight caught in its horns.

“Fairyland’s on special to night, as it happens,” he purred. “So cheap my little baby typhoons in Tokyo will have to go hungry. A bargain fit for a beggar.”

“How much?” ventured September.

The Wind smiled. His woolly, frozen eyebrows waggled. “To night only, my Midnight, Blue- Light, You- Heard- It- Right, Close- Out deal: All it costs is Everything You Have.”

September looked down at her jar of coins, nestled in her lap. “That’s not a proper price at all. How do you know how much I have? What if all I had was a shoelace and a spare button?”

The Wind’s smile got deeper and wider and bluer. “The point’s not what it costs; it’s what it costs you. Everything You Have. That’s my price, that’s my prize, that’s my ransom, and that’s my rune. The only price in the world that matters is the one that hurts to pay.” He let the Moon spin on its chain. “You want it; I have it. There’s no duel here. If you had a shoelace and a spare button, that’d be on the tag.”

September sighed. She had saved it all for this, she supposed, to be able to pay her way respectably. She held her jar, heavy as all the days she’d spent earning it. She was paying with Hours again, she realized, just as she had with the Goblin Glasswort Groof. The coins didn’t mean five or ten or twenty- five cents, they meant time. They meant half a day on the Powell farm or four letters for Mr. Killory or every morning getting rooster scratches on her arm just for trying to feed the White stone chickens.

All money is imaginary.

September lifted the jar up and handed it over.

The whispering Wind scoffed. “The rest, too, little holdout. I’m not your fool.”

September grimaced as she handed over the book of Valkyries and mistletoe and hairy god- legs and her last butterscotch. Being more or less an honest girl, she would have given him the hammer and nails as well, but when she offered them, the Wind hissed and recoiled, smelling their iron. He r ose up into the air in a hurry and, turning slowly upside down, hung the Moon around her rearview mirror. It whirled and glimmered, cool and pale. But the Wind was not finished. He pulled something out of his coat— a huge, long, ornate box, perfectly white, with strange scrimshaw tangled up all over it: horns and crab claws and hearts and ears and stars and flowers and open, grasping hands. It was emphatically locked.

“What’s this?”

“I said it would cost you Everything You Have.” The Blue Wind in the passenger seat chuckled gleefully. “Take this to the Whelk of the Moon in Almanack— that’s a city. Ask anyone, they’ll point you. And no peeking.” The Wind waved his fingers at her. “You didn’t really think a jar of small change was all you had, did you? How sad.”

He closed up his coat and stepped lightly up and away, as if climbing invisible stairs. September looked at her own Blue Wind uncertainly.

“Well?” she snapped. “On your Way, then. Hoof it, or wheel it, or however your personal phraseology would handle the fantastical notion of getting a move on.”

About the Book:

The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland (UK Edition)

“One of the most extraordinary works of fantasy, for adults or children, published so far this century.”—TIME Magazine, on the Fairyland series

September misses Fairyland and her friends Ell, the Wyverary, and the boy Saturday. She longs to leave the routines of home, and embark on a new adventure. Little does she know that this time, she will be spirited away to the moon, reunited with her friends, and find herself faced with saving Fairyland from a moon-Yeti with great and mysterious powers.

Here is another rich, beautifully told, wisely humorous and passionately layered book from New York Times bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente.



About the Author:

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE is the author of The Orphan’s Tales, In the Night Garden, Palimpsest (Hugo and Locus award nominee) and the bestselling The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine.

Find out more about Cat on her website, or follow her on twitter (@CatValente).

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Giveaway Details:

We have two copies of The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two up for grabs – one for US residents, one for UK residents! The giveaway will run until Sunday, January 26 at 12:01am EST. To enter, use the form below!

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50 Comments

  • Shae/Shelver @ Shae Has Left The Room
    January 16, 2014 at 2:21 pm

    Oh goodness. I think OF BEAST AND BEAUTY will be a favorite once I get around to reading it, but I’ll always have a soft spot for McKinley’s BEAUTY.

  • Kirsten W
    January 16, 2014 at 2:49 pm

    This series is my favorite fairy(land) book! I’m in love with everything about them, and am crazy excited for this installment 😀

  • Meg W
    January 16, 2014 at 2:55 pm

    I adored The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland, of course, and like a previous commenter have also always loved Robin McKinley’s Beauty. I think one of the fairy-tale inspired stories that most surprised and intrigued me recently was Ali Shaw’s The Girl with Glass Feet, which was darker than what I usually read, but had amazingly beautiful language, and a sense of the land as a character, which really ties in with some of the rules of Fairyland in general.

  • Lexi
    January 16, 2014 at 2:58 pm

    I loved Robin McKinley’s books growing up and then later found Tithe by Holly Black, which I also enjoyed.

  • Thea Wilson
    January 16, 2014 at 3:08 pm

    I have to agree that Tithe by Holly Black was a fantastic book!

  • Thea
    January 16, 2014 at 3:29 pm

    Just to join in the fairy(tale)/(land) love, I’m currently enamored with the American Fairy trilogy by Sarah Zettel. Reading Golden Girl now and loving it so much.

  • Meghan
    January 16, 2014 at 3:47 pm

    Mine is, hands down, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. I fell in love with that book several months ago.

  • Mrs Mac
    January 16, 2014 at 4:13 pm

    I’ve loved all Fairy tales since I was a little girl, but I also love reading modern retellings of traditional fairy tales. Rump, a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin is the most recent one I can think of. I also love anything by Robin McKinley.

  • Lianne
    January 16, 2014 at 4:59 pm

    I think my favourite fairytales have always been retellings. I have a really profound memory of the first time I read Beauty by Robin McKinley because it made me pick up a book of Grimm’s tales which led to a modern short story retelling of one of them. It was that retelling (anthology title escapes me) that made me think, “Hey! That’s what I did when I was a kid!” because Rumple was a fairytale that was popular in my circle of playmates and we changed it every time we played but the stories, looking back, were always really sinister. Once (the show) also gets my vote for Rumple.

    Amusingly, though, the first stories I really remember were one involving the magical mass-production if porridge and middle-aged Emperors walking around in the nude! You have to wonder about my childhood.

  • Raina Zheng
    January 16, 2014 at 5:59 pm

    Of course I’m totally in love with Valente’s books, but I also really liked Gail Carson Levine’s Biddle books.

  • Kelly
    January 16, 2014 at 6:13 pm

    I love fairy tale retellings, and at the moment, my favorite is Cinder, in Lunar Chronicles 🙂 I really can’t wait until I read the others in the series.

  • Patti
    January 16, 2014 at 6:18 pm

    This is the best series ever! Cat is *such* an amazing writer.

  • Cassie Holmes
    January 16, 2014 at 7:12 pm

    The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland is my favorite!

  • Ellie
    January 16, 2014 at 7:34 pm

    I love the Fairyland series and anything by Robin McKinley. I also just finished Cinder and loved it, so I’m looking forward to the rest of that series!

  • Katharine
    January 16, 2014 at 7:42 pm

    My favorite – I think The Brave Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen. So sad.

  • Erin
    January 16, 2014 at 7:53 pm

    Neil Gaiman’s Stardust is one of my favorites!

  • Randall Newnham
    January 16, 2014 at 8:04 pm

    Not sure about fairies, but A-through-L is my favorite wyvern!

  • SaraC
    January 16, 2014 at 8:06 pm

    I loved Robin Mckinley’s Beauty!

  • Tina
    January 16, 2014 at 8:51 pm

    I’ve always loved the story The Snow Daughter and the Ice Son by Andrew Lang

  • Jenni Enzor
    January 16, 2014 at 10:18 pm

    Well, I loved THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND. But I also love anything by Gail Carson Levine or Shannon Hale.

  • Kerry
    January 16, 2014 at 11:00 pm

    Oh, drat, Shae already named my favorite (I so love both of Robin McKinley’s takes on Beauty and the Beast, though Beauty is a sentimental favorite of mine over Rose Daughter. I’ll go with Fairest by Gail Carson Levine as another special favorite.

  • Justine
    January 17, 2014 at 12:41 am

    Chime by Franny Billingsley doesn’t actually have fairies in it, but it has the feeling of a fairy tale, so it’s my pick because I <3 that book so much.

  • Maya Montgomery
    January 17, 2014 at 1:32 am

    I really love the basics – Hans Christian Anderson and the like.

  • Josephine
    January 17, 2014 at 2:31 am

    Does Artemis Fowl count?

  • Hebe
    January 17, 2014 at 6:41 am

    If Artemis Fowl does count, it definitely has my vote! Thanks for the giveaway – this looks simply awesome.

  • Maya
    January 17, 2014 at 8:32 am

    Definitely 1001 Nights. If that counts anyway.

  • Shannon H
    January 17, 2014 at 9:40 am

    Robin McKinley is wonderful, I read her over and over when I was younger

  • Liz
    January 17, 2014 at 12:00 pm

    Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones.
    This may be stretching the definition of fairy book a bit, but that’s Jones’s MO anyway so let’s go with it.

  • Joni
    January 17, 2014 at 2:11 pm

    My favorite book with fairies would probably have to be the “Theatre Illuminata” trilogy. ^^ Those pixies never fail to start chuckles… Thanks for the giveaway! I love the sweeping imagination of these books.

  • Elizabeth
    January 17, 2014 at 3:02 pm

    I love this series!

  • Jennifer Bird
    January 17, 2014 at 5:51 pm

    Cat’s work is just wonderful. I hope the tour is going super-well! I’ve been telling anyone and everyone in book-talks about this and can’t wait for the next book.

  • Emilia
    January 18, 2014 at 11:11 am

    I really love the Cinder/Lunar Series!

  • Meghan M
    January 18, 2014 at 1:01 pm

    Well, aside from Valente’s Fairyland series (which I love!) people have already named Robin McKinley, but no one has said Spindle’s End, which has always been my ultra-favorite fairy story, with its unconventional and charming Sleeping Beauty re-telling.

  • Alison C
    January 18, 2014 at 7:56 pm

    The series that comes to mind for me is Wicked Lovely. I know I have read other fairy stories but I just can’t think of any!

  • YvonneJ
    January 18, 2014 at 11:26 pm

    Catherynne M. Valente’s Fairyland series is my favorite. Just want to share that for a limited time Amazon has the Kindle edition of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Volume #1 in the Fairyland series) on sale for $2.99 and you can add Whisper Sync for Voice for $2.99. The audio edition is narrated by the author and is AMAZING!

  • Tanith Hicks
    January 19, 2014 at 7:24 am

    Beauty & the Beast, a tale whose origins can be traced back so many centuries and has never lost it’s power 🙂

  • Sarah
    January 19, 2014 at 4:44 pm

    As I said in the other contest, I adore Tink in the PETER AND THE STARCATCHERS series, but I love the Fairyland books as well.

  • HilLesha
    January 20, 2014 at 11:54 am

    My favorite book is Good Faeries/Bad Faeries by Brian Froud.

  • Sheree
    January 20, 2014 at 7:04 pm

    I love the Fairyland books best! The first one blew me away.

  • Serena
    January 22, 2014 at 12:29 pm

    I’ve always loved Beauty by Robin McKinley.

  • superbwg
    January 22, 2014 at 1:43 pm

    I love fairy books in general. Some of my favorites are the short story collection Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm, The Princess Novels by Jim C. Hines, Spindle by Robin McKinley, Ella by Gail Carson Levine…and so many more!

  • Francene
    January 22, 2014 at 3:45 pm

    One of my favorite fairy tale retellings is Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. I enjoy this genre so much. Marissa Mayer’s Cinder/Luna chronicles are also excellent.

  • Allison
    January 22, 2014 at 11:11 pm

    I really enjoy the fae in the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs.

  • Lory
    January 23, 2014 at 10:30 pm

    Many favorites already named (Beauty, Fire and Hemlock, Tam Lin), so I’ll go with the somewhat lesser known Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. A must read if you haven’t already!
    Emerald City Book Review

  • Lauren
    January 24, 2014 at 11:52 am

    I love Freda Warrington’s Aetherial Tales, but I also recently read Alethea Kontis’s books Enchanted and Hero, which were both awesome.

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