Cover Identity | Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan

I'm disappointed in you, internet!

It's been a couple of days since the great and terrible Margo Lanagan, having been cruelly preempted by Amazon's army of image-monkeys, posted on her blog Among Amid While about the cover art for her long-awaited second novel, Sea Hearts.

Here it is:

And no-one's said squat about it! That is, no-one whose blogs I follow...

Which gives one to wonder: by some baffling happenstance do none of you know about this incredible talent? Because I've been psyched about Sea Hearts - working title Watered Silk - for years. Pretty much ever since reading the delightfully, deliciously dark Tender Morsels, which as I recall came to me by way of a recommendation from Amanda Palmer's missus. (No, not a personal recommendation.)

 

Anyway, what gives, internet? This is big news in my book. And there's a blurb too, which I may have missed:

 

"On remote Rollrock Island, men go to sea to make their livings – and to catch their wives.  

 

"The witch Misskaella knows the way of drawing a girl from the heart of a seal, of luring the beauty out of the beast. And, for a price, any man might buy himself a sea-wife. He may have and hold and keep her. And he will tell himself that he is her master. But from his first look into those wide, questioning, liquid eyes, he will be just as transformed as she. He will be equally ensnared. And the witch will have her true payment.

 

"Margo Lanagan weaves an extraordinary tale of desire, despair and transformation. With devastatingly beautiful prose, she reveals characters capable of unspeakable cruelty, but also unspoken love."

 

*squee* I say.

Right?

 

Courtesy of David Fickling Books, Sea Hearts will be with us early next year - in February is Amazon's to be believed, which let's be honest... it often isn't - and that, in any event, is more than enough time for you all to get caught up on Tender Morsels and/or Margo's triumvirate of tremendous short story collections: Black Juice, White Time and Yellowcake. Really, the sooner you familiarise yourself with this wonderful and criminally little-known author, the better.

 

Here endeth today's lesson.