Little Brown offers a first look at the
art and story for Laini Taylor's Bestselling YA trilogy, which concludes
with "Dreams of Gods & Monsters" in April 2014.
Daughter of Smoke & Bone fans can now get their first look at the cover to the trilogy's final book, Dreams of Gods & Monsters.
And author
Laini Taylor and publisher Little Brown
also released a brief tantalizing excerpt--read it below--that hints at
the major confrontations to come in book three.
Smoke & Bone tells the story of Karou, a misfit teen girl
from Prague who lives with Chimera, part human and part animal
creatures, who send her on missions to retrieve human teeth for purposes
she does not understand. In Daughter of Smoke & Bone,
Karou begins to learn more about herself--revelations that shake her
foundations--and falls in love with a seraphim named Akiva.
The sequel finds Karou caught up in the battle between seraphim and chimera as she travels to Eretz, the land they call home.
Dreams of Gods & Monsters picks up where Days of Blood & Starlight
ends. Karou tries to forge an alliance between chimera and seraphim to
fight a foe that threatens both and the battle moves to earth as the
story hurtles to a conclusion.
The stakes are high as this brief excerpt makes clear:
"Step right up, worlds, thought Karou, get your disaster here! She cast
again around the table, but she was surrounded by warriors in the midst
of a war council, and everything that had been decided here could be
filed under “Of course, idiot. What did you think was going to happen?”
Still, she tried. She said, “There is no acceptable level of collateral
damage. And, humans aside, what about us? How many of us will die?”
“As many as necessary,” responded Liraz from across the table, and Karou wanted to shake the gorgeous ice queen angel of death.
“What if none of it is necessary?” she demanded. “What if there’s another way?”
“Do you have another idea?”
And, of course, Karou didn’t. Her grudging admission—“Not yet.”—was bitter.
“If you think of any, I’m sure you’ll let us know.”
Oh, the slice of her gaze, that sardonic, dismissive tone. Karou felt
the angel’s hatred like a slap. Did she deserve it? She darted a glance
at Akiva, but he wasn’t looking at her. It was beginning to feel as
though he would never look at her again.
“If we’re through here,” cut in Thiago, “we have resurrections to
perform before we move.” And that was it. Thought Karou as the council
broke up: Cue apocalypse."
Dreams of Gods & Monsters goes on sale in April. The first
two books were both bestsellers that were also named to multiple best
books of the year lists, including Amazon, The New York Times and Publisher's Weekly.
Taylor is also a cut above many YA fantasy novelists, having been a
National Book Award finalist in 2009 for her short story collection Lips Touch: Three Times.
A movie adaptation is in development. Joe Roth (Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman) is on board to produce for Universal. Stuart Beattie (30 Days of Night, I, Frankenstiein) has been tapped to write the screenplay.
