This is the second book of the Enchanter’s Child duology (yes, I didn’t know that was the word for a two-book series either!) It is released in the USA on February 2nd 2021 and should also be available in the UK. Published by the wonderful Katherine Tegan books with HarperCollins Childrens.
My copies arrived today! Here they are… the cover is amazing.
Update: All the Septimus Heap series is now available on UK Audible! Thank you to everyone for your patience while this was sorted out.
In the summer Maximillian Fly flew the nest and got published by HarperCollins in the USA. He got some really great reviews too. Max is a slightly different book from the ones I usually write - a little more scary, a little more dark. It was a story I wanted to tell, especially after I found Max lurking in my thoughts some years back. When you get a giant cockroach/human hybrid hanging around in your head you just have to give him some serious writing time!
The Rise of the Dragons - published by Scholastic - is now out and flying free! I really enjoyed creating this new world and I am now handing it over to the amazing Jessica Khoury to continue exploring this world in Book Two, which will be out in March 2020. So the story of Joss, Allie, Sirin and the bad guy Lennixes - not to mention the dragons themselves - continues.
First the Old ... I have, at long last, got back to the Official Septimus Heap blog which the lovely Shauki set up many years back. It got a little neglected over the past two or three years - Shauki is now busy translating amazing YA books and I am just ... busy. So over the last few days I finally taught myself how to find my way through wordpress, and the blog site is now current once more. Over the years there have been thousands of questions posted there about Septimus and Araminta too, it is wonderful to go back and see them all!
And talking of questions, I know some of you do book reports on Septimus Heap - which is wonderful - and you often email questions to me on my contact page from a school address. But what I've discovered is that many schools block replies. So I get a lot of book report answers bounced back, which is really sad.
If your school does not allow replies you can now post on the blog. It's a little different as it is a public space and you can see the reply on the site. https://septimusheapblog.com/new-ask-angie/
And now the New ... to be published February 26th 2019: https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Dragons-Angie-Sage/dp/0545864968/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
I'm really excited to see this at last! Some time ago when I was finishing writing StarChaser, Scholastic USA asked me to write a dragonny thing where our world interacts with a hidden dragon world. It was a very exciting idea and I just couldn't resist. After all, we all know there are dragons around and this answered a lot of my dragon questions. It will also come with a game too, which is sounding amazing. I have written the first book in the series and other writers will continue.
And later next year, in the summer of 2019, my lovely Maximillian Fly will be published. Go Max!
So, after a wonderful time in Munich meeting lots of lovely Septimus readers and my fantastic German publishers, Hanser - and seeing snow too - it's back to winter writing. Lighting the fire, imagining strange and wonderful places and then, I hope, making them come alive. I've begun to explore a new place, part desert, part ocean and just a little bit ... odd. This will be two books, a little shorter than my last ones, but as ever, a lot will be going on.
Two of my projects are up in the air right now - which I should not be surprised about as this is obviously what happens when you write about creatures with wings.
Maximillian Fly is slowly wandering through various edits. He's a one-off novel, a little different from my usual, and I'm hoping he'll make his way into the world early next year. But nothing is definite quite yet.
And there are other winged creatures too, also due out next year, I think. But more of those soon, when I'm allowed to tell you about them...
Getting just a little excited at meeting TodHunter Moon and Septimus fans in Germany in a few days time. It's been a while now since I have been to a book event to talk about Sep and Tod (Todi in Germany) and it will be just great to meet readers and Septimus and Todi fans.
Maximillian Fly is now back with me, having his first edit and it is really good to be back in his world for a little while.
I did have another world cooking, a trilogy that went by the name of The Salamander Crown, but it was aimed a little too old for my publisher (It was a gentle YA) so I'm having a go at something younger at the moment. However, I have not forgotten my older readers and I am still have hopes for The Salamander Crown at some time.
So, it is one of those limbo times at the moment with lots of ideas bubbling but nothing certain. But there is a whole lot of possibilities. And, as I moved house only two months ago, I have an exciting new place in which to think about them.
A long overdue update!
Maximillian and those pesky dragons pretty much took over my head since the last post, but apologies for being silent for so very long. The dragons have gone now and so too, very recently, has Maximillian Fly. I'm waiting to hear what my wonderful editor and publisher thinks of him and hoping that he aquits himself well. Maximillian Fly is a stand alone novel that I'm hoping will be out sometime in 2018 although I've not yet got a precise publication date. It will by published by HarperCollins USA.
And who is Maximillian Fly? He is, he would tell you, Roach. He looks not unlike a 6 foot tall cockroach with a few human-style modifications. But in his heart and soul, Maximillian is as human as you or I.
So what comes after Max Fly? Well, I have another world cooking and I'm working on the first few chapters to send to my agent to see what she thinks of it. I'm planning a trilogy set in a watery, weird place. Two female protagonists to begin with, I think. So far there are ancient families, strange traditions, danger lurking beneath the water and possibly some shapeshifting too. As I write, I am realising this is really for a YA age group. Even Max Fly is, I think, for slightly older readers - this seems to be the way my writing is heading now.
And what books do I have coming out this year - in 2017? Er, well actually none, I'm sorry to say. The dragon project is long and involved and won't be out for some time, I think. But I hope Maximillian Fly will make up for the lack next year. No pressure, then, Max...
And I'm reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I am actually reading it for the second time - immediately I finished it I went back to the beginning and started again. I have never done that before with a book. It is stunning. I'd love to write a sequel ...
I am writing:
two things. I don’t usually run two books at once, but one seems to have trodden upon the toes of the next. The toe-treading book contains a fair amount of dragons and I guess toe-treading is what dragons are prone to do. This project is a bit of a collaboration, which is new to me and calls for a lot of re-writes and general fiddling about. I’ve learnt a lot of good things doing it, but after being used to being in sole charge of my ideas and story, the process has been, um … interesting at times. But in a good way.
When the second draft of these dragons flew off some weeks ago I got straight onto MAXIMILLIAN FLY, which is my new stand-alone novel for Katherine Tegen at HarperCollins. It’s a little bit sci-fi mixed with run-down old city and I am really enjoying writing it. Maximillian is not entirely human, but he has a human heart, a difficult mother and I have grown very fond of him. And that is all I’ll say about him for now.
But soon those dragons will be winging their way back for a third draft and Max will be taking a rest for a few weeks. They don’t like to share the same headspace.
I am reading:
Mary Beard’s POMPEII. This is such a fascinating insight into life in Pompeii. Before that I re-read Kate Atkinsons’ LIFE AFTER LIFE, which is a wonderful, heart-soaring book. I shall go back to her amazing A GOD IN RUINS next. Ruins seem to be a bit of a theme at the moment …
I am writing: a whole new world! This does, I admit, sound a little grandiose, but this is the part of writing I enjoy the most. I have a small amount of time until another project comes back from its editors, so until then I am wandering around a strange city that is perched beside a huge marshy expanse of water. I’m getting to know two rather interesting people and beginning to meet others now too. This is the daydream part of writing when all kinds of things are possible. Later on, of course it gets more tricky. But that is for later.
I am reading: The Burning Land, by Bernard Cornwell. This is book 5 of The Last Kingdom series, which is set in Britain in the time of King Alfred. It’s not the usual thing I read, but I am hooked. I love the historical feel, and the characters are great. The lead character is very believable and the female characters, (my spellcheck changed female to falafel, but as yet there are no falafel characters, sadly. I look forward to that) are all, within the constraints of their time, very strong. There is a little too much bloodthirsty fighting for my taste, but it’s right it should be there, you can’t write about Vikings without that kind of stuff. I think there are ten books in the series, so that’s my reading sorted for the next few weeks.