Seanan McGuire’s Portals to Fantasy Worlds

Seanan McGuire

By Carl Slaughter: Seanan McGuire’s 2016 Every Heart a Doorway won the Nebula, was nominated for the Hugo, and made the Tiptree honor list.  In June 2017, she followed with Down Among the Sticks and Bones.  The third in the series, Beneath the Sugar Sky, is scheduled for January 18, 2018.

EVERY HEART A DOORWAY

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children

No Solicitations

No Visitors

No Quests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere… else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced… they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of things.

No matter the cost.

PRAISE FOR EVERY HEART A DOORWAY

  • “Seanan McGuire once again demonstrates her intimate knowledge of the human heart in a powerful fable of loss, yearning and damaged children.” ? Paul Cornell, author of London Falling and Witches of Lychford
  • “So mindblowingly good, it hurts.” ? io9
  • “With Every Heart a Doorway, McGuire has created her own mini-masterpiece of portal fantasy ? a jewel of a book that deserves to be shelved with Lewis Carroll’s and C. S. Lewis’ classics, even as it carves its own precocious space between them.” ? NPR
  • “Seanan McGuire has long been one of the smartest writers around, and with this novella we can easily see that her heart is as big as her brain. We know this story isn’t true, but it is truth.” ? Charlaine Harris, New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series (TV’s True Blood)
  • “Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire is one of the most extraordinary stories I’ve ever read.” ? V. E. Schwab, New York Times bestselling author of A Gathering of Shadows

DOWN AMONG THE STICKS AND BONES

Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.

This is the story of what happened first…

Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter?polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline.

Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter?adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tom-boy. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you’ve got.

They were five when they learned that grown-ups can’t be trusted.

They were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you a life filled with magic in a land filled with mad scientists and death and choices.

BENEATH THE  SUGAR SKY

Beneath the Sugar Sky, the third book in McGuire’s Wayward Children series, returns to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children in a standalone contemporary fantasy for fans of all ages. At this magical boarding school, children who have experienced fantasy adventures are reintroduced to the “real” world.

When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest – not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.)

If she can’t find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests…

A tale of friendship, baking, and derring-do.

Warning: May contain nuts.

One thought on “Seanan McGuire’s Portals to Fantasy Worlds

  1. I absolutely loved the concept of Every Heart when I read it for the Hugos, but the actual execution left me a little cold– I don’t feel like the murder mystery is the best story that could have been told with that set-up. (There were some other awkwardnesses that left me feeling it needed one more draft, too.) That’s why I’m interested in the later books, though, because there’s clearly a lot you could do with that premise. Only they’re priced way more expensively than any of the other Tor.com novellas I’ve seen– more than three times as much on Kindle!

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