Limited edition hard covers of Picking Up the Ghost by Tone Milazzo and Isles of the Forsaken by Carolyn Ives Gilman are now available for pre-order from ChiZine Publications (Canadian customers only) as well as Horror Mall (everyone else).
The first and second of CZP’s fall 2011 titles, these novels promote ChiZine Publications’ tendency to push the dark fiction envelope. This will also mark the first time that Canadian customers can order the books through ChiZine Publications, a move which CZP Co-Publisher Brett Alexander Savory chalks up to “giving more value to Canadian customers,” as they won’t have to pay the extra customs and duty charges with this new option.
An ambitious first novel for Milazzo, Picking Up the Ghost is CZP’s second foray into the world of Young Adult fiction (their first being The Choir Boats by Daniel A. Rabuzzi). The novel follows fourteen-year-old Cinque Williams’ mission of dispelling a curse meant for the inconveniently deceased father he never met. The curse opens Cinque’s eyes up to the “otherworld” around him, filled with malevolent creatures, a possessive ghost, an African Loa and a devious shape-shifter. Cinque must confront the ghost of his dead father if he’s to live another day, but he learns that too much knowledge can be dangerous, and those he trusts are poised to betray him.
“I’ve always loved YA,” says CZP Co-Publisher Sandra Kasturi. “But we always want to take things where no one else has, and [Picking Up the Ghost] manages to go beyond the norm. We like to give the younger audience some credit, so we go out of our way to find strong narratives that will leave them thinking, rather than letting sparkly vampires dominate the pages.” The hardcover of Picking Up the Ghost will have extra content which is unavailable in the trade paperback, including five flash fiction prequels to the novel and two deleted scenes.
Gilman’s Isles of the Forsaken will be the kick-off to a new series for CZP (following the acclaimed Hexslinger Series by Gemma Files), as well as a departure from the author’s previous SF-heavy CV. Isles’ narrative weaves in and out of the lives of three key characters: Spaeth Dobrin, a ritual healer on the isolated island of Yora; Harg, the troubled and rebellious veteran whose home is transformed by conquest; and Nathaway, a well-intentioned imperialist who attempts to ‘civilise’ Spaeth’s people, only to find himself caught up in the revolution that the Forsakens are on the brink of. Material exclusive to this edition is a hand-drawn world map, as well as the first chapter of the novel’s sequel, Ison of the Isles.
CZP will be releasing the original trade paperback, as well as the electronic versions of both books on August 15, 2011. Each edition has a limited print run of 150 copies, max, and will be individually numbered and signed by the authors, as well as cover artist Erik Mohr and (in the case of Picking Up the Ghost) interior illustrator Mara Sternberg.
To pre-order:
- Isles of the Forsaken by Carolyn Ives Gilman
- Picking Up the Ghost by Tone Milazzo
