Waiting on Wednesday--Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

I am sure that by July I will have read all the two hundred plus books on my tbr piles/dispersed scatters, and will be casting around desperately for something new to read. (Yeah right. I'll have paid off the mortgage too). But in any event, school will end, and with it the stress of homework (not my homework, but my sixth grader's; for instance, he came home yesterday announcing that he had to memorize a considerable portion of Patrick Henry's Give me liberty speech by Friday on top of everything else, and I'm sure that twenty years from now it will come in useful (maybe to impress a date with?) but at the moment it's a source of stress). At any event, after June 11 I will have more time to read!!!!!

One of the books I'm most looking forward to is Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman. Those who have read it on net galley have raved about it (like my blog friend Stella Matutina), and it just popped up on my radar again when it was recommended in response to my request for place-centered, character-driven, political fantasy books (see this list for more). At any event, it sounds wonderful; here's the blurb lifted from Amazon:

"Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.

Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen's Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life."

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.