Chantress Alchemy (Chantress Trilogy #2)by Amy Butler Greenfield
352 pages
Publisher: Margaret K McElderry Books
Release Day: May 6th 2014
Synopsis:
Since defeating Lord Scargrave with her music, Lucy, the last Chantress, has lived by the sea, mastering the intricacies of Wild Magic. But now her quiet life is about to end: the wheat crop has failed, the people are rebelling, and Lucy is called urgently back to King Henry IX’s court. There she finds the Inner Council planning to save England by making gold through alchemy. But the golden crucible — the critical element in the alchemical process — has been stolen, its guards murdered. Lucy is charged with finding the traitor behind the attack.
Meanwhile, enemies old and new are gathering. Scargrave's brutal Chantress-hunter has become King Henry's closest advisor. Lucy’s beloved Nat has fallen out of favor and is shunned by his colleagues; their romance means trouble for both of them. Worst of all, something goes wrong with Lucy’s magic. The palace is a labyrinth, and there’s a monster at its heart — a monster who may have the power to defeat Lucy once and for all.
Amy Butler Greenfield returns to the beguiling world of Chantress for a suspenseful tale of courtly intrigue, music, and magic in Chantress Alchemy.
Amy Butler Greenfield was a grad student in history when she gave into temptation and became a writer. Since then, she has become an award-winning author.
Amy grew up in the Adirondack Mountains and later studied history at Williams College, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Oxford. She now lives with her family in England, where she writes, bakes double-dark-chocolate cake, and plots mischief.
Only one?! If you could see the room I’m in now – with five bookcases in it! – you’d know what a hard question this is for me. But today my favorite is A. S. Byatt’s Possession, which I’ve just finished re-reading for the 5th or 6th time. Tomorrow, it might be Code Name Verity or The Adoration of Jenna Fox.
When I find my way into a scene, and the words pour out as fast as I get them down – and they’re the right words!
I’m hooked on a reality show here in the UK called “The Choir,” where a music director recruits people from different walks of life and makes a choir out of them. It’s amazing to watch their confidence and their trust in each other grow. No matter how awful they are at the start, they always make great music by the end.
Casablanca. I know almost all the lines by heart, but it never gets old.
A spring day when everything’s in blossom and the blackbirds are singing, and I can go out for a long ramble with family and friends, and then come home for tea and treats.
I have so many! But lately it’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” because my little girl loves to sing it, and it makes my heart melt when she does.
Double dark chocolate cake. (I love to bake this, and it’s so chocolatey that friends tell me they’ve actually had dreams about it.)
The first fictional boy who captured my heart was Nat in The Witch of Blackbird Pond – which explains why there’s a Nat in the Chantress trilogy. My Nat is his own person, but the name is a tribute to what that book meant to me.
Both, please.
I’m an omnivorous reader: I want it all. That’s part of what I love about YA – there’s so much to choose from! But I especially enjoy stories set in the past, or that touch on history in some way.
“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” -- Henry James
Fantastic writing. Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and other jazz greats. And also wonderful cookbooks!
I’ll go for someone who’s already gone, since there’s no way I’ll meet her otherwise: Jane Austen. Judging from her books and letters, she was sparkling company, and I’d love to know more about how she wrote and revised her novels and what she thought of the business of publishing. I’d also see if she’d let me take a photo, since there’s a lot of debate about what she really looked like.
Malala Yousafazai, the Pakastani girl who was shot for going to school, and who now campaigns for all girls to have the right to an education. She is incredibly brave and determined.
It’s hard to pick one for all the books, but for Chantress Alchemy, it might be the gorgeous “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac (which has covered by everyone from the Dixie Chicks to Tori Amos to Glee).
Thanks so much for the warm welcome! We writers would be lost without readers, so it’s really wonderful to see all the love and enthusiasm you pour into books and blogging.
The trilogy is about Lucy, who discovers she is a Chantress, a spell-singer. Her gift makes her the most powerful girl in England, and the most hunted. In Chantress, she leads a fight against a cruel tyrant and his fearsome Shadowgrims. In Chantress Alchemy, she has to help her battered country recover, unmask a traitor, and fight a direct attack on her own magic. And meanwhile, she’s trying to work out her complicated relationship with Nat, a renegade scientist and spy.
Chantress, by a long shot! It took me five years to find the right voice for that book and to get the plot into shape. Granted, I had a lot of other commitments during those years, but still… five years. I only had about a year and a half to write Chantress Alchemy, but luckily that book came together very quickly, probably because I’d already spent so much time getting to know my characters.
Even though (and maybe even because) Chantress took so long to write, it has a special place in my heart. But Lucy and Nat’s romance becomes much more intense in Chantress Alchemy, and I really enjoyed writing that. I also had a great time creating a twisty new plot and new characters – one of whom became one of my all-time favorites.
I’m fascinated by alchemy, and alchemists showed up in early drafts of the first book. Eventually I realized I couldn’t do the subject justice there, so I saved it all for book two.
The supernatural, by far! I’m spoilt here in England, because there are always places to visit and people to talk to and books to read that help me get my historical details and atmosphere right. But the way the magic works is up to me, and I sometimes have quite a job making sure it’s all consistent.
Passionate, wary, loyal, brave, determined. She finds it hard to trust people, but once she does, she gives her whole heart, and she’s loyal to the core.
The scenes between Lucy and Nat were the most exciting to write. In one of them, Nat has to give Lucy some really dreadful news – and strange as it sounds, that was actually wonderful to write, because I could hear and see them both so clearly that it was almost like watching a movie.
I’m trying to think of one that isn’t a spoiler! Here’s one: “To be a Chantress was to face enemies, for the world feared women with power.”
I have to confess that I’ve never quite figured out who I’d cast for Lucy or Nat! I’m more certain about many other characters, but I love seeing the variety in readers’ cast lists. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel that their casting was wrong, so I’m going to keep quiet about my own choices. One of the great things about books is that we get to picture the characters in our own way.
It will be the most high-action of all the books, but I’m sworn to secrecy about the plot! Here’s what I can tell you, though: Lucy and Nat are at the heart of it, and the challenges they face are more threatening than ever – and will transform their lives.
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Have you read Chantress? If you have, do you have a dream cast in mind for Nat and Lucy? If you didn't what do you think about this series?
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