Oops, where's the camera?

Drat it -- I was going to put up very exciting pictures today -- I got my first copy of Lips Touch in the mail!!!! Yippeee!!! It looks GORGEOUS. The art, the two colors, everything. WE'RE SO EXCITED!!!! I took pictures and everything, but then I left my camera at my parents' house last night. DOH! So that post will have to wait. Instead of showing you Lips Touch, I'll show you this another book, one I can't wait to read.

First of all, how awesome is this cover?
I love it, and love the title, and love the description. I'm pulling this straight from Rachael King's blog, and I hope she doesn't mind:

“There were two rumours surrounding my great-great-grandfather Henry Summers: one, that his cabinet of curiosities drove him mad; and two, that he murdered his first wife.”

Rosemary Summers is an amateur taxidermist and a passionate collector of tattoos. To her, both activities honour the deceased and keep their memory alive. After the death of her beloved grandfather, and while struggling to finish her thesis on gothic Victorian novels, she returns alone to Magpie Hall to claim her inheritance: Grandpa’s own taxidermy collection, started more than 100 years ago by their ancestor Henry Summers. As she sorts through Henry’s legacy, the ghosts of her family’s past begin to make their presence known.

How awesome does that sound? Rachael says: "If you like old country houses, tattooed ladies, taxidermy, cabinets of curiosities, gothic Victorian novels and (possible) ghosts, then I hope this one's for you." Oh yeah, it's so for me. Magpie Hall is being released in New Zealand in November. This is the NZ edition, with the US edition as yet TBA. I want this one though. With this cover. I hope I can buy a signed copy from Rachael.

While you wait, you can read her first novel, The Sound of Butterflies (available now in paperback), which combines several of my favorite fictional elements: mystery, romance, and turn-of-the-century naturalists' collecting expeditions to the Amazon. Seriously, I'm endlessly fascinated by naturalist stories. Here's the description:

Sophie Edgar barely recognizes her husband, Thomas, an amateur naturalist, when he returns from the Amazon, where he had hoped to find his long-dreamed-of mythical butterfly, Papilio sophia. The optimistic young Edwardian gentleman is gone, replaced by a weak, nearly mute shadow of the man she married. Unable to break through his heartbreaking silence, Sophie must glean what she can from his diaries and boxes of exquisite butterflies in order to discover what happened to Thomas in the lush and perilous jungles of Brazil. In the process, she learns as much about herself and her marriage as she does about the secrets harbored by a haunted soul.

A magnificent debut, written in rich and sensuous prose, Rachael King's The Sound of Butterflies is an unforgettable journey from the demure gentility of turn-of-the-twentieth-century England into the heart of darkness.

Lips Touch unveiling coming soon!!!