Bones of the Old Ones Coming in August
The secret’s out of the bag everywhere but on my own site, so I I’m overdue announcing this. Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s has released the cover art, and announced the release date, for the next Dabir and Asim novel, The Bones of the Old Ones, the sequel to The Desert of Souls. Some of you might have seen a little bit of the praise for the first book, which I immodestly mention fills up three pages of fine print on its recent re-release in trade paperback.
The Bones of the Old Ones will be released in hardcover on August 21, 2012, with a cover by the talented Stephen Stone. This is actually the third book chronicling the exploits of Dabir and Asim, Arabian adventurers par excellence, if you count the short story collection released in November in Kindle, Nook and iBook format on November 22.
Here’s the cover blurb, which corrects an in-house one you might have seen floating around on various interwebs:
As a snowfall blankets 8th century Mosul, a Persian noblewoman arrives at the home of the scholar Dabir and his friend the swordsman Captain Asim. Najya has escaped from a dangerous cabal that has ensorcelled her to track down ancient magical tools of tremendous power, the bones of the old ones.
To stop the cabal and save Najya, Dabir and Asim venture into the worst winter in human memory, hunted by a shape-changing assassin. The stalwart Asim is drawn irresistibly toward the beautiful Persian even as Dabir realizes she may be far more dangerous a threat than anyone who pursues them, for her enchantment worsens with the winter. As their opposition grows, Dabir and Asim have no choice but to ally with their deadliest enemy, the treacherous Greek necromancer, Lydia. But even if they can trust one another long enough to escape their foes, it may be too late for Najya, whose soul is bound up with a vengeful spirit intent on sheathing the world in ice for a thousand years…