Genre: YA fantasy
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Pages: 288
Date: January 22nd, 2019
Synopsis
One girl must uncover secrets of the past to save her friend from a terrible curse in this dark and mesmerizing story of love, revenge, and redemption inspired by the myth of Medusa.
Milla knows two things to be true: Demons are real, and fear will keep her safe.
Milla’s whole world is her family’s farm. She is never allowed to travel to the village and her only friend is her beloved older brother, Niklas. When a bright-eyed girl named Iris comes to stay, Milla hopes her loneliness might finally be coming to an end. But Iris has a secret she’s forbidden to share: The village is cursed by a demon who possesses girls at random, and the townspeople live in terror of who it will come for next.
Now, it seems, the demon has come for Iris. When Iris is captured and imprisoned with other possessed girls, Milla leaves home to rescue her and break the curse forever. Her only company on the journey is a terrible new secret of her own: Milla is changing, too, and may soon be a demon herself.
Suspenseful and vividly imagined, The Cold Is in Her Bones is a novel about the dark, reverberating power of pain, the yearning to be seen and understood, and the fragile optimism of love.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Praise for THE COLD IS IN HER BONES
“A dark and enchanting tale about friendship, pain, revenge, and the power of love, The Cold Is in Her Bones is the perfect read for Greek mythology fans and YA readers alike.”―Bustle
“Fiercely written and beautifully feminist, The Cold is in Her Bones reminds us of the power of loyalty and love in the face of ignorance and fear. I loved this tale of dangerous girls with wild hair and tangled hearts.” ―Lisa Maxwell, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Magician
“A fresh, eerily compelling tale of betrayal, revenge, and the ties that bind. When van Arsdale paints a world, you can feel the fog against your skin.” ―Elly Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Frostblood Saga
Excerpt
This scene gives a little hint of one of the ways the Medusa story comes out in my novel. This is a scene involving Milla, my sixteen year old protagonist, and her mother, Gitta.
Gitta stood behind Milla’s chair, pulling her comb through Milla’s dense, nearly black coils of hair.
Then Gitta stopped. “What is…”
Milla felt Gitta’s fingertips searching her scalp just above her left ear. Then a sharp pinch. “Ouch, Mamma!”
Gitta sucked in her breath. “Lord protect us from demons Lord protect us from demons Lord protect us from demons.” Gitta held something that squirmed between her two fingers. A tiny, emerald green snake, the length of her pinky, with a brilliant dot of crimson red blood on its tail end.
Milla said, “That was in my hair?”
Gitta shook her head. “No. No. Lord protect us from demons Lord protect us from demons Lord protect us from demons.” Gitta dropped the snake to the floor and crushed it beneath her heel. “It was growing from your head.”
Gitta grasped Milla by both shoulders. “You must not speak a word of this. You must behave. Be a good girl. A very good girl. It’s the only way to keep you safe. To keep you here. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Mamma, I understand.”
Milla awakened the next morning just as night was paling into dawn. She touched the spot on her head, just above her left ear, where Mamma had ripped out the snake. She remembered the way the tail end of the snake had dripped blood. Was it hers or the snake’s? Or did their blood flow together—was it one and the same?
She expected to find a sore spot there. A break in the skin. A tender place. Instead, she sensed movement that wasn’t her own, and something smooth and cool and dry wrapped itself around her finger.
The snake had grown back.
Copyright © 2019 by Peternelle van Arsdale
About the Author
Peternelle van Arsdale grew up in Newark, New Jersey, where she attended public school through the eighth grade. After that she attended three high schools in three different towns in four years, was deeply unpopular, and counted the seconds until graduation. She majored in English literature at Bryn Mawr College, and then landed in book publishing, thinking it was a good way to be paid to do what she liked to do anyway (she was only partly wrong). She worked her way up from editorial assistant to executive editor of adult fiction and nonfiction, and eventually struck out on her own as an independent editor.
Her first young adult novel, The Beast Is an Animal, is being developed by Amazon Studios for a feature film produced by Ridley Scott’s Scott Free and directed by Bert & Bertie. Her essays have been published by LitHub, Hypable.com, and Culturefly, and her short fiction has been published by The Whitefish Review.
Her second novel, The Cold is in Her Bones, will be published in January 2019. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she continues to edit and is at work on her third novel.
Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook | Instagram
One winner will receive a set of book from Peternelle van Arsdale (THE COLD IS IN HER BONES and THE BEAST IS AN ANIMAL). Giveaway is open to international. Must be 13+ to enter. End February 13th, 2019
Enter the giveaway here
Triplicity
Match Me If You Can