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Author Crush!

If you’re into fast-paced urban fantasy, Norse mythology, and witches, you’re in luck! Tessa Gratton is an absolutely fantastic author - she knows how to create fantasy worlds that you feel like you can just jump into. My current favorite by Tessa is her newest book, The Queens of Innis Lear (SF-F GRA), which is a retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear but with the emphasis on the women. If you’re a fan of short stories, Tessa Gratton has contributed to several short story collections, such as Grim (Jh GRI), Three Sides of a Heart (Jh THR), The Curiosities (TN CUR), and The Anatomy of Curiosity (TN ANA). She also wrote short stories for The Merry Sisters of Fate blog with Maggie Stiefvater and Brenna Yovanoff.

In The Lost Sun (TN GRA), book one of the United States of Asgard universe, the Norse gods are real and they’re essentially celebrities that people worship. When Baldur, the god of light, doesn’t rise from the dead in his annual renewal, Astrid Glyn, the daughter of a famous seer, enlists the help of the warrior Soren Bearskin to track him down. There’s a really interesting mix of modern technology and mythological fantasy that’s a little weird to start off, but once you get used to it, it gives the world its own unique spin.

The Blood Journals is a dark fantasy duology where each book centers around different characters in different locations coming to terms with the magical world that they are a part of. In book one, Blood Magic (TN GRA), Silla and Nick are drawn together in their small town of Yaleylah, Missouri to learn about their family histories, both of which reveal an ancestry of blood magic practitioners. Together they are thrown headlong into the often dark world of magic in order to find out the truth behind Silla’s parents’ apparent murder-suicide.

If you’re not a fan of Shakespeare, you might be after reading The Queens of Innis Lear (SF-F GRA) - this book was absolutely fantastic! It’s the tale of King Lear’s three daughters, Gaela, Regan, and Elia, all of whom have their own (often greedy) ambitions. When the king strips Eila of her title and dowry, declaring that the island of Innis Lear will be divided between Gaela and Regan, the whole court descends into chaos. If you’ve read King Lear, you probably already know how the story goes, but it is so worth reading. The Queens of Innis Lear reshapes and adds so much more depth and intrigue to the plot with the emphasis on the women.

For more information about her books, find Tessa Gratton at her website, Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter. If you’ve read and loved her books, give these authors a try: Holly Black (start with Tithe – Jh BLA), Brenna Yovanoff (start with Of Poseidon – TN YOV), Maggie Stiefvater (start with Shiver or The Raven Boys – TN STI), and Julie Kagawa (start with The Iron King – TN KAG).

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777 Front Street Lisle, IL 60532 | Phone: 630-971-1675 | Fax: 630-971-1701 | Hours: M-F 9:30am-9:00pm, SAT 9:30am-5:00pm, SUN 1:00pm-5:00pm