Ratha's Courage demand exceeeding availability: where to find it

The good news is that Ratha's Courage has been selling well. The bad news is that it's running out of stock in many places, including Amazon.com. If you're trying to locate a copy, it is still possible to find one. Here are some suggestions:

• Check your local independent bookseller with IndieBound
• Authorsbookshop.com currently has 1 copy in stock, with more on the way.
• Powells.com has some copies in stock
• Buy direct from the distributor, Beagle Bay Books
  
• BarnesAndNoble.com shows shipping in 2 - 3 days
• If it's not available in your local bookstore, any bookstore should be able to order it for you. The wholesalers are also having difficulty keeping it in stock, so your bookseller may say that it's out of stock and they can't order it. If that happens, ask your favorite bookseller to backorder it so that it will come in when it's back in stock!
• If it's not available in your local library, ask your library to order it! Most libraries will order a book that isn't in their collection if enough patrons ask for it!

Edited to add: you can also purchase Ratha's Courage as an e-book from E-reads.com.

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Book Giveaway for Teen Read Week!

This week is Teen Read Week, an annual event created by YALSA, the young adult division of the ALA. In honor of Teen Read Week, I'm going to be giving away a set of three books from the Named series, by Clare Bell: Ratha's Creature (book 1), Clan Ground (book 2), and the newly published Ratha's Courage (book 5).

For a chance to win, all you have to do is to write a limerick relating to this year's Teen Read Week theme, "Books with Bite," and leave your limerick in the comments. Your limerick could be related to the theme in general, or it could be about your favorite book with "bite". To get you started, here's a limerick written by Clare Bell, author of the Named series:


With October comes Halloween night
When we dress up to give folks a fright
Costumed as bats
Or black Named clan cats
And read all the best books "with bite".

Entries must be posted by this Saturday, October 18, at 11:59 pm Eastern Time. The winner will be selected by random drawing, 'cause, well, I was recently a judge in a writing contest and I know how hard it is to pick one winner from so many good entries. I'd rather celebrate and enjoy all your limericks rather than having to choose one as "best".

The winning entrant must be able to give me a shipping address for review copies, so anyone under 18 should check with your parents first. You don't need to give me your address unless you win (please don't post it here!) and I promise I won't do anything with your address other than ship you the free books!

So limerick away! I look forward to reading your entries!

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Ratha's Courage announcement

When I was a kid, there was a razor commercial on TV where some famous guy (I assume he was famous from the context of the commercial, but I have no idea who he was) said that he liked the razor he was touting so much that he'd bought the company. I can't imagine being so passionate about a razor that you had to buy the company, but I reviewed an author that I like so much, that I acquired her latest work for my publishing company, Imaginator Press.

Back in April, I reviewed Ratha's Creature, by Clare Bell. Ratha's Creature is an intense young adult book about a young prehistoric female cat named Ratha who is exiled from her clan and must learn to survive. Ratha's Creature was first published in 1983, and won an IRA award, a Pen Center USA award, received a Booklist starred review, and was selected for the Best Books for Young People list. Ratha's Creature, along with the other three books in the Named series, were reprinted with stunning new covers last year by Firebird Books.

I loved Ratha's Creature and the Named series so much, that when I learned that the newest book in the series, Ratha's Courage, was available, I was excited at the opportunity, and reached an agreement with Clare Bell through her agent, Richard Curtis, to publish it. Many thanks to Spirithunter, a member of the Wands and Worlds teen community, for suggesting the idea.

Ratha's Courage will be published next month, and if any bloggers are interested in an ARC, please let me know. Author Clare Bell is also available for interviews. She's a fascinating person, who among other things installed her own solar and wind power systems at her house in Northern California. In researching Ratha's Courage, she built a skull model of Dinaelurus crassus, a miocene period cheetah-like cat, and another one similar to the first, but with an enlarged braincase to allow for greater intelligence, for a fictional species that she named Dinaelurus illumina sapiens. You can see these skull models and read more about the research and preparation for the book on the author's web site, Ratha's Courage.com.

See Ratha's Courage on Amazon.com

Buy local through IndieBound!

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