the mark of the dragonfly blog tour: author interview with jaleigh johnson

Author Jaleigh Johnson is here today at Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia for an interview.  Her middle grade debut The Mark of the Dragonfly combines steampunk, an epic train ride, and a wholly magical adventure.  The Mark of the Dragonfly was released by Delacorte (Penguin Random House) on March 25^th, 2014.

Jaleigh Johnson is a lifelong reader, gamer, and moviegoer. She loves nothing better than to escape into fictional worlds and take part in fantastic adventures. She lives and writes in the wilds of the Midwest, but you can visit her online at www.jaleighjohnson.com or on Twitter @JaleighJohnson.

Welcome Jaleigh!

The Mark of the Dragonfly has been described as steampunk and sci-fi.  What is your favorite thing about writing steampunk/sci-fi?

Well, the “steam” parts were a lot of fun to write, especially the 401 train and its defenses, but I think my favorite thing about writing the steampunk elements of The Mark of the Dragonfly is that I was able to explore the impact of an industrial revolution when combined with an age of exploration. I think that’s more of the “punk” part of the equation. I wanted to write a book where these two forces—exploration and technology—collided and left the world struggling over limited resources, how that would create its own class system, and how it would impact people like Piper, who are at the bottom.

What is the most interesting discovery you made while researching The Mark of the Dragonfly?

I think the most interesting (and unsettling) discovery I made was that as much as I love trains, when I started writing I knew very little about how steam engines work, so that was a huge hurdle to overcome. I also had no idea how dangerous early rail travel could be, or that some people were afraid of the effect that travelling at those high speeds would have on the human body. And by “high speeds” they were talking about anything over 13 miles per hour! For that fact, and many others, I owe a lot to The Railroad Passenger Car by August Mencken.

What are you favorite middle grade/YA speculative fiction titles, aside from your own?

I love Madeleine L’Engle’s books, my favorite being A Wrinkle in Time, and anything written by Robin McKinley, especially Beauty, Rose Daughter, and The Hero and the Crown.

Do you have any hidden (or not so hidden) superpowers?

Hmm, that’s a hard one. Most people are surprised when I tell them that my day job is doing tax and accounting work. Hehe, maybe it’s a superpower to be able to balance all those numbers and words in my head at once. It can be maddening too, though.

What are you reading right now?

At the moment, I’m reading Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo and loving it. Talk about superpowers. Super-powered squirrels for the win. 

What new(ish) book do you wish you'd read as a kid (or at least earlier in life)?

Good question. I’m going to cheat a little because this isn’t new. But more than a specific book, I really wish I’d discovered Diana Wynne Jones when I was younger. I came to her books just a few years ago with Howl’s Moving Castle. I love her writing now, but I would have loved it when I was a kid too. It just goes to show how many amazing books there are out there to discover. I know I’ll never find them all, but it doesn’t stop me from trying.

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Thank you for joining us, Jaleigh!  I too love Robin McKinley and Diana Wynne Jones – you have wonderful taste in books.  *grin*

Fans of The City of Ember will love The Mark of the Dragonfly, an adventure story set in a magical world that is both exciting and dangerous.

Piper has never seen the Mark of the Dragonfly until she finds the girl amid the wreckage of a caravan in the Meteor Fields.

The girl doesn't remember a thing about her life, but the intricate tattoo on her arm is proof that she's from the Dragonfly Territories and that she's protected by the king. Which means a reward for Piper if she can get the girl home.

The one sure way to the Territories is the 401, a great old beauty of a train. But a ticket costs more coin than Piper could make in a year. And stowing away is a difficult prospect--everyone knows that getting past the peculiar green-eyed boy who stands guard is nearly impossible.

Life for Piper just turned dangerous. A little bit magical. And very exciting, if she can manage to survive the journey.

Fine print: I received an e-ARC of The Mark of the Dragonfly from the publisher for honest review. This post is not sponsored in any way.

waiting on wednesday (73)

Today I’m participating in "Waiting On" Wednesday, a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. Its purpose is to spotlight upcoming book releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

I read Garth Nix’s Sabriel, the first book in his Old Kingdom series, when I was in high school.  My main prerequisites for checking a book out from the library (my primary means of book discovery) at that point were that the cover look cool (granted, totally subjective) and that the book be substantial/long.  I read very quickly in those days (ah, I miss them!), had few distractions, and craved as long a reading experience as possible.  It is important to note that during this same period I read many James Michener and Leon Uris epics – solely due to page count.  Follies of youth and all that.

Anyway, Sabriel was a huge favorite, and so were the following books, Lirael and Abhorsen.  I actually asked for (and received from an obliging brother) a box set of the Abhorsen books for my nineteenth birthday.  An Old Kingdom novella was included in Nix’s collection of short stories Across the Wall, and that also joined my Garth Nix shelf.  What I am trying to say… is that I am flipping obsessed with this series, and the fact that there’s a new story coming out this year makes me want to spaz out like a child on Mountain Dew for the first time.  I have no idea how I will stay sane until Clariel’s release date (which is October 14, from HarperCollins).  So so so so so so so excited!!!

Clariel is the daughter of the one of the most notable families in the Old Kingdom, with blood relations to the Abhorsen and, most importantly, to the King. When her family moves to the city of Belisaere, there are rumors that her mother is next in line for the throne. However, Clariel wants no part of it—a natural hunter, all she ever thinks about is escaping the city’s confining walls and journeying back to the quiet, green world of the Great Forest.



But many forces conspire against Clariel’s dream. A dangerous Free Magic creature is loose in the city, her parents want to marry her off to a killer, and there is a plot brewing against the old and withdrawn King Orrikan. When Clariel is drawn into the efforts to find and capture the creature, she discovers hidden sorcery within herself, yet it is magic that carries great dangers. Can she rise above the temptation of power, escape the unwanted marriage, and save the King?

What books are you waiting on?

top ten books on my spring to-be-read list

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we all get to exercise our OCD tendencies and come up with bookish lists.  If you’d like to play along, check out this post.

Every time one of these TBR (to-be-read) pile posts comes along, I wonder about the advisability of searching for ten books to fill the list.  Does it raise expectations (in anyone beside myself) that I’ll get to the books in a timely manner?  (I won’t.)  And I worry too about accidentally leaving a book I’m dying for off the list.  These may be silly thoughts, but they’re real.  Anyway, the list below contains books on my library hold list, my Amazon wishlist, and my Goodreads to-read shelf.  In other words, a good representation of what I can’t wait to read this spring.

Top Ten Books on My Spring To-Be-Read List

1. Death Sworn by Leah Cypess – Assassin school and a mage who has lost her magic.  Why do I want to read this?  Because: obviously.

2. The Inventor’s Secret by Andrea Cremer – Steampunk young adult will always hold a special place in my heart, and this one sounds intriguing.

3. The Islands of Chaldea by Diana Wynne Jones and Ursula Jones – The last DWJ book ever!  I still need to read most of her backlist, but it is sad to realize that there are a finite number of books left to discover now that she has passed.

4. A Creature of Moonlight by Rebecca Hahn – A debut featuring dragons, politics, and a girl who belongs in neither the human or dragon worlds.  Ummm, YES.

5. The Undertaking of Lily Chen by Danica Novgorodoff – This adult graphic novel sounds dark, messed up, and kind of fantastic.  Can’t wait to read it.

6. The Last Best Kiss by Claire LaZebnik – This is a contemporary YA retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion.  Persuasion is only one of my favorite books of all time!  Plus, I enjoyed LaZebnik’s Epic Fail (a retelling of Pride & Prejudice) previously.

7. Rose and the Lost Princess by Holly Webb – Rose was one of the finalists that my judging panel picked for the CYBILS award in Elementary and Middle Grade Speculative Fiction.  It was a charming book, and I am definitely looking forward to more adventures featuring plucky Rose.

8. Talker 25 by Joshua McCune – Dragons confined to reservations, a military state, and a girl who accepts a dare.  Yep, sounds pretty fantastic.

9. The Mark of the Dragonfly by Jaleigh Johnson – Steampunk-ish middle grade, with a mystery and a perilous journey.  I’m in.

10. Castle Behind Thorns by Merrie Haskell – Have I told you how much I loved Haskell’s The Princess Curse recently?  That was one amazing book.  I can’t wait to see how Haskell twists a new fairy tale in this one (which looks like it might riff on Sleeping Beauty?).

What books are you looking forward to this spring?

tin star

Cecil Castellucci’s Tin Star was one of my Waiting on Wednesday picks last fall because it looked like an interesting young adult science fiction novel (YA sci-fi is one of my delicious weaknesses).  But even more than that, it sounded like a unicorn of YA: a book that didn’t rely on romance as its central plot point.  That kind of story seems to be increasingly rare, so I try to take careful note when one pops up.  Well everyone, it should come as no surprise that I loved Tin Star.  Even given months of anticipation and high hopes, I fell for everything about it.

On their way to start a new life, Tula and her family travel on the Prairie Rose, a colony ship headed to a planet in the outer reaches of the galaxy. All is going well until the ship makes a stop at a remote space station, the Yertina Feray, and the colonist's leader, Brother Blue, beats Tula within an inch of her life. An alien, Heckleck, saves her and teaches her the ways of life on the space station.

When three humans crash land onto the station, Tula's desire for escape becomes irresistible, and her desire for companionship becomes unavoidable. But just as Tula begins to concoct a plan to get off the space station and kill Brother Blue, everything goes awry, and suddenly romance is the farthest thing from her mind.

Tula Bane has been beaten and left for dead on a remote space station.  She’s the only Human on the Yertina Feray, a station orbiting an abandoned mining outpost on the fringes of the universe.  In order to survive, she must adapt, and quickly.  Through sheer determination she forges a kind of half-life for herself, and even makes a friend of the alien Heckleck.  Then three Humans crash land and disturb the balance of life on the station.  Tula must again scramble for survival, and decide how far she will go to get revenge.

What is a victim?  It is someone without options.  Tula Bane is a great survivor, and she refuses to be a victim.  Yes, terrible things happened to her.  But her will to continue living, and her innate honor, combined with that great Human trait of adaptability, allow her to create a life where she should by rights have died.  Tula is a smart dealmaker, filled with hate (and then, when that is mostly burnt out, stubbornness), and lonely beyond belief.  It is inspiring, and a little heartbreaking, to read about her.  She’s an unforgettable, complex, difficult person, and I cared about her an immense amount.

Of course, an important element of any work of science fiction is the… science fiction.  It must hold together, and the best worldbuilding (universe building?) will become the seamless background for a great story.  That is the case with Tin Star.  I felt almost awed at times by Castellucci’s writing.  I took photos of pages with my phone camera, in too much of a hurry to stop and transcribe a quote, but desperate for a record of the page so I could go back and soak in the words later.  Here is an example, from page 47:

“He never talked about what had stranded him here, and I could read that it was a deep wound—likely as deep as mine.  Betrayal and grief have a certain color no matter what the species is.  Everyone in the underguts seemed to carry that color with them in their voice or walk or hunch.”

As I said, I loved this book.  I loved its dark, almost bleak tone (in part because Tula is so alone, and in part because the Yertina Feray is so isolated in space).  The complex bartering system, shifting alliances, unusual alien species, and politics all fascinated me.  The plot was fairly twisty – there were turns I saw coming, and others that caught me by surprise.  The romantic element was understated but interesting for all that.  Tin Star was a gritty, balance-on-the-edge-of-your-seat kind of book, and it made a place for itself in my heart.

Recommended for: anyone who can imagine a cross between Garth Nix and Sharon Shinn, fans of intelligent sci-fi and survival stories, and those who have dreamed of what life might really be like in space.

Fine print: I received a copy of the book for honest review from the author/publisher.  I did not receive any compensation for posting this review.