Cover Reveal and Author Spotlight for Mysteries of Cove: Fires of Invention by J. Scott Savage

Today I'm pleased to share with you the cover a fun new middle grade book by one of my favorite authors, J. Scott Savage. Please meet: 

Mysteries of Cove Book One: Fires of Invention

This book will be released in September, so you can be sure to hear more about it then. In the meantime, here's a few more fun tidbits:

Author Note:

Like many of my books, the inspiration for my new series Fires of Invention came from the collision of two ideas. The first time the story occurred to me was while I was watching the musical Wicked with my wife. The moment I walked into the theater and saw the huge mechanical dragon above the stage, I thought, Wow! I have to write a story about that! A few weeks later, I was talking with my nephew, who is probably the most creative kid I know, but whose inventiveness often gets him into trouble, and I thought, What if a kid who had the talents of my nephew lived in a world where creativity was against the law? What if the kids were building . . . a steam-powered dragon? Bam! I had my story.

Powered by great feedback from my agent, Michael Bourret, my good friend and author James Dashner, my publisher, Chris Schoebinger, and the song “Warriors” by Imagine Dragons, I wrote the entire first draft of the first volume in the series, Mysteries of Cove in four weeks. This book is unlike anything I have ever written. There are elements of City of Ember, Dragon Riders, and Hugo in it all mashed up together in a world I fell in love with from the moment I started writing.

I think what’s most exciting to me about this book is that it’s about giving yourself the freedom to imagine. To take chances. Too often we limit ourselves by only trying things we’re confident we can succeed at when what we need to do is give ourselves permission to fail. Often it is when we attempt things with no idea of how we can possibly pull them off that we achieve our greatest successes.

Book Description:

STEAMPUNK! Plus Dragons!

Trenton Colman is a creative thirteen-year-old boy with a knack for all things mechanical. But his talents are viewed with suspicion in Cove, a steam-powered city built inside a mountain. In Cove, creativity is a crime and "invention" is a curse word. Kallista Babbage is a repair technician and daughter of the notorious Leo Babbage, whose father died in an explosion-an event the leaders of Cove point to as an example of the danger of creativity.

Working together, Trenton and Kallista learn that Leo Babbage was developing a secret project before he perished. Following clues he left behind, they begin to assemble a strange machine that is unlikely anything they've ever seen before. They soon discover that what they are building may threaten every truth their city is founded on-and quite possibly their very lives.

Author Bio:

J. Scott Savage is the author of the Farworld middle grade fantasy series and the Case File 13 middle grade monster series. He has been writing and publishing books for over ten years. He has visited over 400 elementary schools, dozens of writers conferences, and taught many writing classes. He has four children and lives with his wife Jennifer and their Border Collie, Pepper, in a windy valley of the Rocky Mountains.

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Authors Pick Five: J. Scott Savage

Awhile back, I had an idea. I thought it would be cool to have a standard question to ask whenever I did a blog tour and/or author interview. Granted, I don't do very many of these, not like some of you do anyway, but still I thought it would be fun to have a particular question I'd ask every time I did.

That's when my Authors Pick Five idea was born, and so I went ahead and asked the question to the first two authors ( Paul Harris and Cathy Holton) with their blog tour interviews this past summer.

So I thought, why not make it retroactive and go back and ask this same question to authors I've highlighted or interviewed in the past?

It was then that I got timid and nervous, wondering if it was stupid, and stressing about "bugging" them, but then I thought there was nothing to lose really. I mean, if they were too crazy busy, they'd just ignore it and no problem with that. So, after thinking about it for these past couple of months, I finally sent the email.

Within literally minutes, I heard back from three of them! Wow! So now I'm all excited to press onward with my idea and branch out and not be shy and ask even more authors this question:

"What are the five most important or influential books to you?"

J. Scott Savage was the first to send me his answers. (He's the one, you may remember, that signed and gave my son the uncorrected proof of his next book, during our blogger/author picnic a few weeks ago.Yeah, we think he's pretty cool.)

The five books he picked (with his explanations included) are:

A Wrinkle in Time—as a younger reader, this was my first real introduction to Sci-Fi/Fantasy. It was a book that had both adventure and a thought-provoking message—to me at least.

The Outsiders—This was my adolescent book. SE Hinton became one of my instant favorite authors. It may have been my first really edgy book. Not so edgy now, but at the time, it felt that way.

Enders Game—I must have read this at least twenty times and it still holds up. Great, great fiction.

Grapes of Wrath—I know a lot of people hate this book, and I understand why. It is slow. It is painful. It does not have a happy ending. But I remember reading this book and having no idea the country I lived in could have really had this happen. It felt like I was reading about some third world country. It also made me realize that good, hardworking people could end up out on the streets through no fault of their own.

Fahrenheit 451—I remember being shocked and fascinated by this book at the same time. Scared the crap out of me to think of books being outlawed since they were my best friends for much of my childhood.

J.Scott Savage is the author of Farworld: Water Keep, which begins the adventures of Kyja and Marcus as they go on a quest to save their worlds. Book Two of their adventure, Farworld: Land Keep comes out in just a couple of weeks! Both these books are illustrated by Brandon Dorman of Fablehaven fame. Beautiful stuff.

He also writes a wonderful blog where much of his time is spent giving detailed advice to aspiring writers. You can tell he loves the business and is totally enthusiastic about being part of it.

Here in my original interview, which also includes my review of Water Keep, you can learn lots more about him!

Truly, if YA fantasy is your thing (or your kid's) you need to read his stuff!