Today is publication day for my young adult historical novel, Color Song. A tale of art, intrigue, and romance set in glorious 15th century Venice, it's a followup to my previous YA historical, Passion Blue, but can be read as a standalone.
I'm incredibly excited to have Color Song out in the world at last, and for the wonderful reviews it has been receiving on Goodreads and elsewhere. It's published for the older teen market, but there's plenty of crossover appeal for adults.
I've got a virtual book tour scheduled for the next few weeks, with interviews, reviews, and more. The full schedule is posted here and on my personal website; I'll be tweeting and Facebooking tour stops as they happen.
There's also a HUGE giveaway, with Kindle Paperwhites in custom covers, signed books, and swag.You can enter here. Feel free to tweet about the giveaway, feature it on your blog, tell your friends, or all of the above! Thanks so much.
Skyscape (Amazon Children's Publishing)
Hardcover: $17.99
Paperback: $9.99
Ebook: $3.99
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By the author of the acclaimed Passion Blue, a Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Book of 2012 and “a rare, rewarding, sumptuous exploration of artistic passion,” comes a fascinating companion novel.
Artistically brilliant, Giulia is blessed – or cursed – with a spirit’s gift: she can hear the mysterious singing of the colors she creates in the convent workshop of Maestra Humilità. It’s here that Giulia, forced into the convent against her will, has found unexpected happiness, and rekindled her passion to become a painter – an impossible dream for any woman in 15th century Italy.
But when a dying Humilità bequeaths Giulia her most prized possession – the secret formula for the luminously beautiful paint called Passion blue – Giulia realizes she’s in danger from those who have long coveted the famous color for themselves. Faced with the prospect of lifelong imprisonment in the convent, forever barred from painting as a punishment for keeping Humilita’s secret, Giulia is struck by a desperate idea: What if she disguises herself as a boy? Could she make her way to Venice and find work as an artist’s apprentice?
Along with the truth of who she is, Giulia carries more dangerous secrets: the exquisite voices of her paint colors and the formula for Humilità’s precious blue. And Venice, with its graceful gondolas and twisting canals, its gilded palazzi and masked balls, has secrets of its own. Trapped in her false identity in this dream-like place where reality and reflection are easily confused, where art and ambition, love and deception hover like dense fog, can Giulia find her way?
This compelling novel explores timeless themes of love and illusion, gender and identity as it asks the question: what does it mean to risk everything to follow your true passion?
The combination of page-ripping plot and insight into the creative process is as rare and luminous as the color Strauss imagines.
- Kirkus –
- Kirkus –
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