In this heart-pounding conclusion to the Witch’s Child trilogy, Catherine Egan’s masterful world-building and fiercely flawed heroine will thrill fans of The Rose Society, Graceling and Six of Crows.

Julia has been ensnared in so many different webs it’s hard to see how she’ll ever break free. She must do Casimir’s bidding in order to save the life of her brother. She must work against Casimir to save the lives of most everyone else she knows.

Casimir demands that Julia use her vanishing skills to act as a spy at court and ensure that a maleable prince is installed on the throne of Frayne. But Julia is secretly acting as a double agent, passing information to the revolutionaries and witches who want a rebel princess to rule.

Beyond these deadly entanglements, Julia is also desperately seeking the truth about herself—how is it she can vanish? Is she some form of monster? Is her life her own anyway?

With every move she makes, Julia finds herself tangled ever tighter. Should she try to save her country? Her brother? A beloved child? Can she even save herself?

In this heart-pounding conclusion to the Witch’s Child trilogy, Catherine Egan’s masterful world-building and fiercely flawed heroine will thrill fans of The Rose Society, Graceling and Six of Crows.

Julia has been ensnared in so many different webs it’s hard to see how she’ll ever break free. She must do Casimir’s bidding in order to save the life of her brother. She must work against Casimir to save the lives of most everyone else she knows.

Casimir demands that Julia use her vanishing skills to act as a spy at court and ensure that a maleable prince is installed on the throne of Frayne. But Julia is secretly acting as a double agent, passing information to the revolutionaries and witches who want a rebel princess to rule.

Beyond these deadly entanglements, Julia is also desperately seeking the truth about herself—how is it she can vanish? Is she some form of monster? Is her life her own anyway?

With every move she makes, Julia finds herself tangled ever tighter. Should she try to save her country? Her brother? A beloved child? Can she even save herself?  

I adore Rachel Hartman’s books – Seraphina, Shadow Scale, and the recent, brilliant, shattering, recovery-from-trauma-road-trip-novel Tess of the Road.  

N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy is unlike anything else out there, and I cannot recommend the books highly enough: The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky. They are completely original, stunning achievements, and gave me actual nightmares (diamond-toothed stone-eaters chewing their way up out of the sidewalk).  

I have been loving Kiersten White’s gender-bent Vlad the Impaler novels – I suppose they are more alternate history than fantasy, there is no magic, but I’m going to include them here anyway because they are so good. And I Darken, Now I Rise, and I am so eager to finally read the conclusion to the trilogy, just out this summer: Bright We Burn.   

I recently read Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation, a reconstruction-era zombie novel that really is as good as all the rave reviews say it is, so I was thrilled to hear a sequel will be coming. 

Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves has won pretty much every award Canada has to offer, and I hope that readers in the U.S. are going to discover it in the same numbers. It is a harrowing page-turner, the prose is beautiful, the characters unforgettable, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I’m hugely looking forward to Heather Fawcett’s All the Wandering Light, sequel to Even the Darkest Stars, with witches and dragons (my faves!) as you’ve never seen them before, and heart-pounding mountain-climbing scenes.   

Two SFF novels I always like to recommend, because I feel like neither one quite became the massive phenomenon that it ought to have become, are Zen Cho’s totally charming Sorcerer to the Crown, which balances high stakes and farce so deftly, and Alaya Dawn Johnson’s The Summer Prince, which has possibly the coolest world-building of any SFF novel I’ve ever read, while also being a gorgeously written coming-of-age story about love, art, and revolution.     Thank you, Catherine Egan, for your time and thoughtful answers! And much thanks to Penguin Random House Canada for the opportunity to host a Q&A with Catherine Egan on my blog. 😍

The heart-pounding follow-up to Julia Vanishes and the second book in the Witch's Child trilogy. Catherine Egan's masterful world-building and fiercely flawed heroine will thrill fans of The Rose Society, Graceling, and Six of Crows

In this compelling and action-packed novel, Julia and her allies travel to the other side of the world in their efforts to thwart Casimir's quest for power. They rescued the baby Theo from his fortress once, but Casimir is relentless. He needs this child. Or rather, he needs the magical power that has been written into the child's very being. And so Julia and a mismatched band of revolutionaries, scholars, and thieves journey to Yongguo, searching out the witch who worked that dark spell. They must find a way to separate the magic from Theo without killing him--a nicety that Casimir won't bother with. Julia is also searching for answers about herself. Her ability to vanish to a place just out of sight has grown--she can now disappear from her world so completely that it's like stepping into another world. A dark and fiery world that that feels disturbingly like hell. Where the creatures seem to recognize her--and count her as one of their own. Caught between a web of ruthless, powerful people, and a world seemingly dredged from her nightmares, Julia must decide not just who but what she really is if she wants to survive. 

The stunning first book in an exciting new fantasy trilogy! Murder, thievery, witchcraft and betrayal--who could resist?

Julia has the unusual ability to be . . . unseen. Not invisible, exactly. Just beyond most people's senses. It's a dangerous trait in a city that has banned all forms of magic and drowns witches in public Cleansings. But it's a useful trait for a thief and a spy. And Julia has learned--crime pays.
 
Her latest job is paying very well indeed. Julia is posing as a housemaid in the grand house of Mrs. Och, where an odd assortment of characters live and work: A disgraced professor who sends her to fetch parcels containing bullets, spiders and poison. An aristocratic houseguest who is locked in the basement each night. And a mysterious young woman who is clearly in hiding--though from what or whom? Worse, Julia suspects that there's a connection between these people and the killer leaving a trail of bodies across the frozen city.
 
The more she learns, the more she wants to be done with this unnatural job. To go back to the safety of her friends and fellow thieves. But Julia is entangled in a struggle between forces more powerful than she'd ever imagined. Escape will come at a terrible price.
 
One that will she will be paying over this book and the two to follow.