Diana Wynne Jones Fans discussion

Have you heard that Jones is supposed to have a new book out next year?! It is titled Enchanted Glass, and Goodreads has this plot summary:

"As a boy, he had spent fascinated hours looking at the garden through each differently coloured pane. Depending, you got a rose pink sunset garden, hushed and windless; a stormy orange garden, where it was suddenly autumn; a tropical green garden, where there seemed likely to be parrots and monkeys any second. And so on. As an adult now, Andrew valued that glass even more. Magic apart, it was old old old. The glass had all sorts of internal wrinkles and trapped bubbles, and the long-dead maker had somehow managed to make the colours both intense and misty at once."

When the magician Jocelyn Brandon Hope died he bequeathed Melstone House to his grandson Andrew. He also left his ‘field of care’: an area of strangeness surrounding the land around the house, whose boundary Andrew must walk in order to preserve its power.

Andrew had always loved the house, but he finds owning it a lot more complicated, aside from all the magic. There is Mrs Stock, the tyrannical housekeeper who won’t let him move the furniture and punishes him with her terrible cooking. Just as bad is the obsessive gardener who will only grow giant inedible vegetables. To add to his troubles, twelve year old orphan Aidan Cain suddenly arrives on the doorstep begging protection from magical stalkers, and Andrew’s sinister rich neighbour, Mr Brown, begins to encroach on the ‘field of care’. The one compensation is the gardener’s beautiful niece, Stashe. Things become stranger and stranger until all is made clear with the help of the enchanted glass itself.

Not since HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE has Diana Wynne Jones combined romance and humour so successfully as in this delightful novel with echoes of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

It does sound REALLY good. *salivates*

maybe 2010 is the US release.

you can ask them to order it in for you though can't you?

You know those big flashy cardboard standers for Twilight? Someone at my local bookstore took out the copies of Twilight and replaced them with Robin McKinley's Sunshine.

Fiona wrote: "According to Amazon not till January 2010!"

I've read somewhere (maybe Diana Gabaldon's website?) that Amazon just makes up release dates. It was Gabaldon's website. She was amazed that Amazon had a release date up for her latest book when she hadn't even finished writing it at the time. So don't take Amazon too seriously. I'd take the author's word for it. And that works out well, since it's the earlier date, doesn't it? :-)

yeah, all those websites do. For awhile...maybe even still...BarnesandNoble.com had a release date of 2022 for Patrick Rothfuss' next book Wise Man's Fear!

The book sounds really good. I do hope that it is released this year.

It says on amazon that it's coming out in the US in April. I think I'm going to pre-order the book when it's closer to time for it to come out. I really can't wait for the book to come out so I can read it.

Last time I pre-ordered something from Amazon they let me include in the "$25 free shipping" even though it was shipping later.

It's not released in America until April so I won't be getting it for awhile yet. I wish it was getting released sooner in America, I really want to get it and read it. I'm going to pre-order it when it gets closer to time for it to come out.

I soooo want this one!!! *putting it into my wishlist*

Has anyone read this yet? I don't want to be spoiled for it or anything, but I am dying to know a little what tone to expect- is this going to be a Fire and Hemlock/Spellcoats or a Hexwood or a House of Many Ways?

I hope Enchanted Glass is not Hexwood like. Hexwood confused me. In fact I'm still confused!

Yeah, I read Hexwood three times and was still not convinced everything made sense in the end. I still enjoyed it, though!

Hm. I see references to Deep Secret and the Merlin Conspiracy in this one...
"an area of strangeness surrounding the land around the house, whose boundary Andrew must walk in order to preserve its power" - similar to what the King of Blest in MC had to do to preserve the magic in his kingdom.
Nick Mallory in Deep Secret used to look through the window panes in his house too, although in DS they were plain ol' regular glass but the distorted view through them made Nick feel like he was transported to another world.
...so :D

*goes off and joins general excited hype*

I received Enchanted Glass in the mail and am anxious to read it!

Paula wrote: "I received Enchanted Glass in the mail and am anxious to read it!"

I got mine a few days ago, but can't read it yet as I have to finish the books I borrowed from the library first. I'm very excited to read it though.

The last book that I read of DWJ .House of Many Ways wasn't as good or complicated as many of her other books. I did enjoy it, though. I think that The House of Many Ways was written for younger children. And as you said, Fiona, still very DWJ!

Eden, those library books do come first. I stop checking out library books a long time ago after that very large fee for overdue books! I'm ready to be more responsible now and will try the library again. Audiobook are so expensive!

I'm on page 56 of Enchanted Glass. I wish that Andrew would fire the two Stocks. They are really irritating!

I finished Enchanted Glass a few days ago and I loved it. I thought it was really good.