Congratulations to this year's Cybils winners! and other good stuff including a favorite sff romantic scene for V. D.

The Cybils winners have been announced!  Congratulations to The False Prince, one of my favorite books of last year, for winning in the middle grade sci fi/fantasy category! Congratulations to Giants Beware! my nominee for graphic novels for kids (I think it's the first time a book I've nominated has won!).  Congratulations to Seraphina, for winning in YA sci fi/fantasy!  And of course to all the other fine books and app that won in the other categories.

If you want a chance to show more love to your favorite YA sci fi/fantasy book, voting for this year's Locus Awards has begun, and it's a fabulous list. (You have until April  15th to vote).

And because it's Valentine's Day, and because Patricia McKillip seems to be getting more love these days in the blogs, here is my favorite romantic scene from one of her books.  It is also the fictional romance that frustrates me most, because I can't stand that there isn't any more of it, so this is a book I want everyone to go out and buy so that the possibility of another book in the series increases.

From page 218 of The Cygnet and the Firebird; the first speaker is a prince caught by an enchantment that transforms him each day into a firebird. The second speaker is the heir to her own holding, a young woman with the most insatiably curious mind for magic of any heroine I know, who is determined to break the spell.

"You used to look like a mage."

"What does a mage look like?"

"Like a closed book full of strange and marvellous things. Like the closed door to a room full of peculiar noises, lights that seep out under the door. Like a beautiful jar made of thick, colored glass that holds something glowing inside that you can't quite see, no matter how you turn the jar."

"And now?" she whispered. He came close; the light at their feet cast hollows of shadow across his eyes, drew the precise lines of his mouth clear.

"Now," he said softly, "you aren't closed. You're letting me see."

He slid his hand beneath her hair, around her neck. She watched light tremble in a drop of water near the corner of his mouth. He bent his head. The light leaped from star to star across his face, and then vanished. She closed her eyes and he was gone..."

The Cygnet and the Firebird is the sequel to The Sorcerer and the Cygnet, a fine book in its own right, in that twisty, magical McKillip way. They were recently republished in an omnibus edition.

And finally, the winner of my giveaway of The Madness Underneath is Maureen!