Hi everyone. I'm Rincey and I'm one of the
contributing editors over at Book Riot.
Today I'm going to be continuing on with
the series where I highlight a Book Riot
Live author. The author I'm going to be
talking about today is Maria Dahvana
Headley. This is another author that I
didn't really know too much about
until it was announced that she was
coming to Book Riot Live and so I decided
to look into her a little bit.
She definitely has one of the most
interesting bios that I've ever seen
before. I'm just going to read this to
you guys really quickly before we get
started with like her actual writing.
It says, she grew up in rural Idaho on a
sled dog ranch, spend part of her
twenties as a pirate negotiator and ship
marketer in the maritime industry and
now lives in Brooklyn in an apartment
shared with her as 7-foot long stuffed
crocodile. So already intrigued. [laughs]
She has written a bunch of different novels
as well as like short stories and
novellas and all of them sort of have
this fantasy or fantastical twist to
them, which is something that I really
enjoy. Her probably best known or
best-selling book that's out there is
her young adult fantasy story Magonia. In
Magonia you are following this young
girl named Aza Ray. She's about 15 years
old and her entire life she's suffered
from this mysterious lung disease that
makes it really difficult for her to do
anything, breathe,
talk, move. And its slowly getting worse
as she's getting older. So one day she's
in class and she looks out the window
and she sees what to her seems to be a
ship in the sky and she believes that
she hears that ship is calling her name.
And then she sort of just like passes
out in class. And everyone just thinks
that this is just like a side effect for
the medication that she's taking. The
only person that believes her is her
best friend Jason. They've been best
friends since they were little kids.
Since Aza Ray has always been sick she
never really had a lot of friends but
Jason was always really intrigued by
her because she seemed so interesting to
him. So yeah, they've been friends for a
really long time and it looks like they
both probably have feelings for each
other as well but before anything
could happen with that, Aza Ray
gets really sick. So when you're reading
the first part of this book it feels
like it's all be grounded in reality. It
feels like contemporary fiction book. But
then it sort of takes this twist
once Aza Ray passes away.
This isn't a spoiler. It says this in the
cover. And it turns out that Aza Ray is
sort of taken to another world called
Magonia. In this world, Aza Ray isn't sick
and she isn't weak. She's actually
extremely strong and healthy. She can
breathe just fine. But she also realizes
or she finds out that Magonia and Earth
are just on the cusp of this immense war
breaking out. She has a major part to
play in all of this and she has to sort
of decide where her loyalties lie with
you know like her loved ones back on
Earth or with this world and Magonia.
This book is kind of unlike anything
else I've seen before or read before. The
writing in here feels very, I don't wanna
say surreal, but it does feel very
dreamlike. Especially because there are
sort of these fantastical elements
wrapped up in the real world, it feels
very dreamlike. Because there is this
aspect of reality that grounds this
book pretty well but then you see that
there's all this other stuff happening
and it feels unreal and it feels dreamlike
and things like that. And the writing is
very like stream-of-consciousness style
so that also adds to that effect and
that style. So there is already a sequel
to Magonia is called Aerie. It came out this
month. I haven't read it yet but there are
consequences for the things that happen
in the first book as you would expect.
Another book that she wrote is called
Queen of Kings, which is this alternate
history, fantasy, historical fiction sort
of book. This one has to do with
Cleopatra and Mark Anthony and
Alexandria in 30 BC. In this story
Cleopatra finds out that Marc Anthony
has died by his own hand and Cleopatra
sort of turns to the gods for help. She
ends up basically making a bargain with
one of the gods. In this one
Maria Hadley is sort of doing this
fantastical reimagining of the death of
Cleopatra, which is really interesting.
You could tell that she did a lot of
research into the actual historical
aspects of the story in order to make it
again more grounded and more real.
She also intertwines vampire
myths into the story. But it's a really
sort of like fun take on if like
Cleopatra was set in a vampire world,
which sounds pretty cool to me.
Maria Headley also co-authored a fantasy
anthology along with Neil Gaiman, which
is pretty awesome. The anthology is
called Unnatural Creatures and it was
actually published to benefit 826DC. 826
is a literacy organization that has
hubs set up in a lot of different
major cities and they work with schools
within these cities to provide literacy
programs to kids in elementary school up
and through high school.
It's a really great organization. So yeah,
Unnatural Creatures features 16 different
stories. So if you're someone who likes
fantasy stories in general and would
like to sample a bunch of different
authors as well as Maria Headley, then
this is a really great collection to
pick up, especially since it's supporting
a really great nonprofit. So yeah that is
just a really brief overview of Maria
Headleys work. She is a very unique writer.
When I was reading Magonia, the writing
style sort of took me by surprise almost.
It wasn't what I was expecting and it
again feels very dreamlike, very
different from things that I normally
read. So keep that in mind when you are
picking it up. If you like Neil Gaiman,
I think that you'll like Maria Headley. More
like The Ocean at the End of the Lane
than American God. So if you liked that
book, then I think that you would like
Maria Headley. So yeah if you've read any
books by Maria Headley, definitely leave
a comment down below letting me know what you guys
thought of them. Or if you have any other
recommendations of other things that
she's written, I know that there are a
bunch of short stories and novellas out
there that she has written that she has
published in various anthologies and
magazines and whatnot. So definitely your
recommendation down below if you have
any. Also, as always, there is information
down below to Book Riot Live. There's a link
if you want to register. It's happening
in New York City November 12th and 13th.
It's coming up very soon. So hopefully we will
be seeing some of you guys there.
So yeah that's all I have this week and I
will see you next week. Bye.
