Just look at that cover. Then, feel free to judge the book.
Artist Gerard Miley captured this one perfectly. HUSH is, at it core, a story about a woman with a magical hammer fighting her way across a frozen landscape to confront the eponymous primal dragon of cold.
Hush is a damn big dragon. She's so large that one chapter of this novel is set inside her mouth. Infidel, Stagger, and Sorrow have to fight a shapeshifting ghost with, an ogre champion, three ogre priestesses, a human judge and his bodyguard and a dozen burly sailors on the battleground of Hush's tongue. And there's still room for three boats. Hush is big, I tell you, big!
If you've read Greatshadow, you know who Infidel and Stagger are. But you're probably wondering who Sorrow is. Sorrow is a young witch who gains power over the material world by hammering nails into her skull. For instance, she has an iron nail in her temple that gives her the power to mold iron as if it were clay. Her powers are rather formidable, though she spends half the novel wearing an iron brace on her limbs because her hobby hasn't exactly been good for her health.
To assist her in physical tasks, Sorrow builds a wooden golem, then crafts a soulcatcher to go out and hunt for a ghost she can use to animate it. Stagger happens to be the nearest ghost who has failed to move on from the material plane. So, after spending 90% of Greatshadow as a disembodied spirit, Stagger spends 90% of this novel back inside a body, albeit a wooden one, with an oak barrel for a chest, roots for fingers, and a coconut for a head. His soul essentially serves as a battery to bring the golem to life, and, like any battery, the more Sorrow uses him, the weaker he gets. And, it's not like he gets to use his new body for anything he wants to do. He can only move if Sorrow commands him to.
Adding to his frustrations, Sorrow is a passenger on the same boat that carries Infidel to the frozen north. So, Stagger spends much of the book within a few dozen feet of the woman he loves, forbidden to so much as wave at her, unable even to call out her name as his coconut skull lacks a tongue.
Will Stagger ever get to speak with Infidel? Can Infidel survive her quest now that she's lost her strength and invulnerability? Will Hush succeed in her plot to murder Glorious, the primal dragon of the sun, plunging the world into eternal winter?
You don't have to wait any longer to find out! HUSH hits bookstores today! Run out right now and buy a copy. Then skip work today and read it, so you can join me on my first ever Goodreads discussion thread, where I'm talking about all the books of the Dragon Apocalypse, even books I haven't written yet! Here's the link. After you buy your copy, if you want a second copy to give to your best friend in the whole world but don't have the extra dough to shell out in these rough economic times, then as long as you're at Goodreads, why not sign up for the HUSH giveaway there? Twelve copies are available to residents of the US, Canada, and the UK. If you want to try to win one, enter here.
Good luck! Don't be shy about Amazon reader reviews and enthusiastic tweets!
