WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT FOR - MELTING STONES?

MELTING STONES US audiobook coverResidents on one of the Battle Islands south of Emelan have sent a call for help to Winding Circle temple: their plants and trees and the animals who live around them are dying off in patches, for no reason that they can work out.  From Winding Circle come two familiar figures: prickly green mage Rosethorn, whose plant magic will help her to decipher what's ailing the plant life on the island, and Briar's former student, the obstreperous stone mage Evumeimei, or Evvy, who is eager to travel once more. With them comes the eager and nervous Dedicate Initiate Myrrhtide, who will help them to communicate with Winding Circle should they need to, and the companion Evvy met while she, Rosethorn, and her former teacher Briar were traveling in distant Yanjing, Luvo, a being who is best described as a walking, intelligent rock. Though supposedly Evvy and Luvo are simply along for the ride, they are pulled into the island's mystery when Evvy is caught up by the wild spirits loose in an immense bubble of molten rock quite close to the surface of the island. What Evvy, Luvo, Rosethorn, and the people of the island can do in the face of a fast-approaching volcano will be anyone's guess. Can they evacuate the island?  Or worse--will they try to shift a volcano?

MELTING STONES will be a little different for me. Its first appearance will be as an audio book, recorded with a full cast and produced by the wonder-makers at Full Cast Audio (who brought you the full cast audio book versions of The Circle of Magic, with company president Bruce Coville as Niko). (Click here to read the press release announcing MELTING STONES' audiobook publication.) Bruce, one of the top writers of books for intermediate readers (THE MONSTER'S RING, MY TEACHER IS AN ALIEN, THE GHOST IN THE THIRD ROW, THE SONG OF THE WANDERER, and many more books), will be my editor for this audio book. I'm looking forward to it: when I wrote the short story "Elder Brother" for the anthology HALF HUMAN, it was Bruce's editing that helped me to create what I think is the best short story I have written to date.  I know with him to help me shape MELTING STONES, I'll have an audio book I can be proud of, and Bruce can have many more entries for the "Tammy Pierce is a Potty Mouth" CD he claims to be putting together!  (Click here to listen to a MELTING STONES audiobook sample from Audible.com.)

MELTING STONES US HardcoverNOTE ON CIRCLE CONTINUITY REGARDING BRIAR, EVVY AND ROSETHORN:

After Briar, Evvy, and Rosethorn leave Chammur (STREET MAGIC), they got to Yanjing and after that, Gyongxe, first home of the Living Circle temples, where they are caught up in the trauma of conquest on a grand scale. Those events will be the subject of the next Circle book about any of the original four (currently untitled).

Once Briar, Evvy, and Rosethorn return to Emelan, Briar goes to Namorn with Sandry, Daja, and Tris (THE WILL OF THE EMPRESS). Evvy lives at Discipline. When Rosethorn is called to investigate tree die-off on one of the Battle Islands, she takes Evvy with her. What happens then is the subject of MELTING STONES, which will be the first book about any of the four's students.

I hope that straightens out the time line. The time line goes:

Yanjing
Summersea
Namorn -- Battle Islands

as in, THE WILL OF THE EMPRESS and MELTING STONES happen roughly in the same time period.

- Tamora Pierce

all site content copyright Tamora Pierce except where noted
page design by Cate Burlington