THE MAGIC THIEF BOOK 4: HOME IS COMING THIS FALL AND HERE IS THE COVER!!!!!

It is a great honor to present the cover of The Magic Thief: Home!

 

Isn't it a lovely cover!  Isn't it lovely that the fourth books is really truly on its way, coming out this September 16th.  Isn't Pip (the dragon) the cutest thing!

If you haven't had the pleasure of reading the Magic Thief series, by Sarah Prineas (from HarperCollins), you are in for a treat!  And if you have, you are doubtless joining me in squee-ness, because this is a truly lovely middle grade fantasy series.

A bit of background:

The Magic Thief  was one of my favorite books of 2008. It was one of the first books I read for the Cybils that year, and it stayed firmly in the small group of books I was determined to push onto our final shortlist. Happily, no pushing was required.

Here's the blurb I wrote for the Cybils website:

"This fast-paced, fun, and engrossing story tells of a young thief who has survived on the strange streets of Wellmet alone, thanks to his quick hands and quick wits. But when Conn picks the pocket of the wizard Nevery, and pulls out the stone that is the locus of Nevery's magic, his life changes. As the wizard's new apprentice, Conn has only thirty days to find his own locus magicalicus, or lose his new status. Much worse is the fact that someone, or something, is sucking the magic out of Wellmet, and Conn has to use every bit of his quickness, and every bit of his new-found magic, to defeat the Magic Thief. A great adventure, with great characters!"

Then came The Magic Thief: Lost in 2009, and The Magic Thief: Found in 2010.....and then Sarah Prineas wrote a whole different trilogy (Winterling, Summerkin, and Moonkind), which was lovely too, but it resulted in a long and anxious wait for those of us who love Conn and co. to pieces!

Hence the truly joyous joy of knowing that this book is really coming.

The descriptive blurb isn't quite ready yet, but back in 2012 Sarah posted this on her blog:

"Here’s what the fourth Magic Thief book is about:
It’s called Chimney Swifts (that’s my title for it; my publisher might change it), and it’s about what happens when a gang of chimney sweeps are going down chimneys in Wellmet to steal locus magicalicus stones.  Everybody suspects Conn, of course, because he is a thief, so he (and the little dragon Pip!) has to join the sweeps to figure out what’s really going on.  What he discovers is that his biggest enemy has returned to Wellmet and is up to no good…"


And not only do I get to reveal the cover, but here are preliminary sketches of some of the characters for the interior art by illustrator Antonio Javier Caparo:

Embre:

 

Pip the dragon, in cat form (he'll be more dragonish in the final version:
And finally, Rowan:

Thank you so much, Sarah and HarperCollins!