Post by Mary on Feb 19, 2006 11:47:28 GMT -1
Sorry if you have all felt neglected (though I always read the forum at least once a week).
I have been very busy finishing The Falconer's Knot, which is now at Bloomsbury. My agent loves it and rang me on a Sunday to say so but I haven't heard from my editor yet.
OK, it's not a Stravaganza but is for teenagers. It has a handsome hero (Silvano) and a pretty heroine (Chiara) but their love story is complicated by the fact that he is in love with a married woman and accused of murder at the beginning of the book. It's set in Umbria in 1316. Silvano gets sent for sanctuary to a friary near Assisi and poor Chiara is dumped in a neighbouring convent by her mean brother. There are lots of murders. Oh, and the friars and nuns grind pigments for the painters working on the basilica in Assisi, so there's a lot about art and colour.
Anyway. I'm pleased with it. It won't be out till next year though, because that's how long these things take.
Other book news: I have to write a picture book next and then i shall be getting down to proposals. Bloomsbury have commissioned me to write another book like The Falconer's Knot, which MIGHT be, as Alex says, about da Vinci's apprentice but it would be awkward to handle the homosexual element - US publishers in particuilar get very sensitive about this.
But I shall also submit an outline for 3 new Stravaganzas - set in Padavia (Luciano at university remember + visits from Arianna in her boy's disguise), Classe (there will be pirates) and Fortezza (a di Chimici siege and battle and disputed inheritance). New characters will be the 3 new Stravaganti from our world + "their" stravaganti in the cities, together with Ludo, a half di Chimici, half Manoush. There will be more on Guido and Cesare.
I have a strategy for what to do if Bloomsbury don't want to do them, so have no fear.
While all the proposals (and there are others) are brewing, I shall return to my adult novel and hope to finish it by summer. My agent is keen on that too and thinks she can place it. So - busy, busy.
Good luck to all of you doing exams this summer and to all of you of course. Thank you for liking my books so much.
Mary
I have been very busy finishing The Falconer's Knot, which is now at Bloomsbury. My agent loves it and rang me on a Sunday to say so but I haven't heard from my editor yet.
OK, it's not a Stravaganza but is for teenagers. It has a handsome hero (Silvano) and a pretty heroine (Chiara) but their love story is complicated by the fact that he is in love with a married woman and accused of murder at the beginning of the book. It's set in Umbria in 1316. Silvano gets sent for sanctuary to a friary near Assisi and poor Chiara is dumped in a neighbouring convent by her mean brother. There are lots of murders. Oh, and the friars and nuns grind pigments for the painters working on the basilica in Assisi, so there's a lot about art and colour.
Anyway. I'm pleased with it. It won't be out till next year though, because that's how long these things take.
Other book news: I have to write a picture book next and then i shall be getting down to proposals. Bloomsbury have commissioned me to write another book like The Falconer's Knot, which MIGHT be, as Alex says, about da Vinci's apprentice but it would be awkward to handle the homosexual element - US publishers in particuilar get very sensitive about this.
But I shall also submit an outline for 3 new Stravaganzas - set in Padavia (Luciano at university remember + visits from Arianna in her boy's disguise), Classe (there will be pirates) and Fortezza (a di Chimici siege and battle and disputed inheritance). New characters will be the 3 new Stravaganti from our world + "their" stravaganti in the cities, together with Ludo, a half di Chimici, half Manoush. There will be more on Guido and Cesare.
I have a strategy for what to do if Bloomsbury don't want to do them, so have no fear.
While all the proposals (and there are others) are brewing, I shall return to my adult novel and hope to finish it by summer. My agent is keen on that too and thinks she can place it. So - busy, busy.
Good luck to all of you doing exams this summer and to all of you of course. Thank you for liking my books so much.
Mary
