Cover Reveal: Marabel and the Book of Fate by Tracy Barrett

You’ve got your cover reveals, and then you’ve got your cover reveals.  Sometimes I’ll get asked to do a reveal and it’ll be for a book that I already have in my possession.  In those cases the book jacket reveal isn’t really all that surprising at all.  In some cases I’ll be asked to reveal a book from someone pretty darn famous.  In those cases the reveal gets traction without any additional information.  And once, in a very great while, I’ll be asked to reveal a book that isn’t out for almost 365 days.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet MARABEL AND THE BOOK OF FATE by Tracy Barrett – pub date February 6, 2018.  Barrett’s a great author.  Been around for years and one of those writers that can tap into younger fantasy worlds with skill and aplomb.  Her latest sounds fun too.  Here’s the synopsis:

In Magikos, life is determined by the Book of Fate’s ancient predictions, including the birth of the Chosen One who will save the realm. Princess Marabel has grown up in the shadow of her twin brother, Marco, who everyone assumes is the true Chosen One. While Marco gets to be a hero, Marabel must practice her sword fighting in secret. But on the night of their thirteenth birthday, Marco is kidnapped by an evil queen, and Marabel runs to the rescue. Outside the castle walls for the first time, accompanied by her best friend and a very smug unicorn, Marabel embarks on a daring mission that brings her face-to-face with fairies, trolls, giants–and the possibility that all is not as it seems in Magikos. With her brother’s and kingdom’s futures hanging in the balance, Marabel must make her own fate in this funny, heartfelt, and delightfully feminist romp through fantasy and fairy-tale conventions.

Like a lot of reveals, I wanted to give you a little something extra.  So before I get to the cover, Ms. Barrett was kind enough to produce for me a list that I just think is a perfect complement to today’s list. Take it away, Tracy!

Five Kick-Butt Women We Should Know Better

Artemisia I of Caria

Although she was Greek, Queen Artemisia I of Caria fought on the side of the Persians when Persia and Greece went to war in the fifth century BCE. Artemisia advised the Persian king not to fight Athens’s powerful navy. He went ahead anyway, and Artemisia joined him, personally commanding five ships. The Greeks offered a great reward to anyone who could capture her, since they thought it was intolerable for a mere woman to go to war against them. The Persians were defeated, just as Artemisia had predicted, but she cleverly escaped capture.

Mochizuki Chiyome

In the sixteenth century, Mochizuki Chiyome trained orphans, runaways, and abandoned girls to be ninjas. These “kunoichi,” as they were called, were mostly spies, but they were also experts in fighting. They disguised their weapons as traditionally female accessories, such as fans and hatpins.

Njinga

The ruler of two kingdoms in what is now Angola, Africa, the seventeenth-century Queen Njinga Mbandi was an expert diplomat and ambassador. All her trusted advisors were women. When diplomacy with the slave-hungry Portuguese failed, she entered into war with them, requiring women as well as men to fight in her army. She formed alliances with neighboring African kingdoms as well as some European powers, and signed a peace treaty with her enemies after thirty-five years of combat.

Milly Francis

Most people have heard of Pocahontas, but not as many know about Milly Francis. Milly was a Creek Indian who saved a U.S. Army captain from being killed by Seminoles. The Creeks freed the captain after receiving a ransom for him. After his release, the captain asked her to marry him, but she turned him down. She was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1844.

Helene Kottaner

Helene Kottaner was a lady-in-waiting to the fifteenth-century Queen Elizabeth of Luxemburg. When Elizabeth was about to give birth a few months after her husband’s death, she fled her castle, afraid of her late husband’s rivals. In her haste, she left behind the special crown that had to be used in her baby son’s coronation. She sent Helene back to get it. It was a harrowing journey; the queen’s enemies were suspicious when Helene pretended to just be picking up a few things she needed, and on the return journey, Helene’s sled, carrying the precious crown hidden in a pillowcase, broke through the ice of a frozen river. But she made it, and the baby was crowned king

Hat tip to Tracy Barrett for going out and finding all those images of these women out there for me.

And now, the cover reveal:

Thanks to Tracy and the good folks at Little, Brown for this mighty early release.

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