Monday, November 9, 2015

Real-Time Reading Companion!

A companion to The All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness for fans to explore: The All Souls Real-Time Reading Companion - U.S. Cover by Penguin Books
Cover of the All Souls Real-Time Reading Companion
Yes!  In case you've missed it (perhaps taking a social media break?  Maybe we'll try that one day! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) We are going to get an official real-time reading  companion for our e-readers from Penguin Books, just like our friends in the UK (or wherever Headline Books are sold) did!  We are very excited about this!  Why?  Because we've personally kept our own somewhat diversified, piecemeal versions of reading companions around. They live in our picture folders, in our e-book notes, on our computer desktops, in a pile of stickies, on scrap paper, in dog-eared copies of our All Souls Trilogy tree-books, in our browser 'favorites', on Word documents or Excel spreadsheets (depends what's within reach!), based on the real-time posts from Deborah Harkness' social media. Yes, we are those kind of nerds about this series (we did warn you about that!)  We take solace in the knowledge that we aren't alone!  Come out of the closet, fellow All Souls geeks!  ;)

There are also wonderful people in this fandom that have compiled real-time calendars for both ADOW and SON (visit The Tenth Knot, they have really good ones!)  We recommend having all resources available to you when you read this series!  How nice is it to just have an official companion right in your e-reader, though?  It's a whole new level of geek!

We did know that this was coming (as Deb mentioned that Penguin was working on bringing us our own version in one of her posts announcing the Headline variant), but we are really glad it's coming soon.  And you can't beat the price: $0!  The write up says it's illustrated - not sure if it is actually illustrated, or the phrase is used as a term of figurative description; "A richly illustrated real-time reading guide that brings to life the world created by Deborah Harkness in A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night, retracing the events of the bestselling novels with illuminating behind-the-scenes details."  We'll see, soon enough!

From some of the previews/post-views we saw of the UK version (we're pretty confident that it'll contain much of the same information), this will really be helpful to real-time readers.  Even if you aren't a real-time reader, you'll enjoy it!  You'll get a sense of the time-frame of events, and the places where they occurred.  Perfection!

A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES real-time reading, 31 October (chapter 42) - picture is from an example of Deborah Harkness' real-time reading on Facebook
An example of one of the a real-time reading posts we love so much.  This one is pretty special, because the witch and vampire belong to a Daemon!  It also helps that we won't need to hunt down a photo credit source!  Score! :D

Release is on the 17th of November, 2015.  You don't have an e-reader?  That's fine!  If you have a smartphone, an iPod Touch, or a tablet you'll be able to view it.  You can even read it on your desktop/laptop.  There are apps for that!  Amazon has apps available for almost every device, and Barnes and Noble is no slouch in that department either.  Go ahead and pre-order!  It will literally cost you NOTHING.  :)

According to our author, it will be available for Kindle, Nook, and iBooks, wherever U.S. editions of the books are available.  We have the Amazon and B&N links along with a countdown currently on our sidebar (viewable - look to the left - if you are on a laptop/desktop).  If you are mobile, and can't see it, you can pre-order on Amazon here, or Barnes and Noble here.  Search the iBooks store to pre-order on your Apple device (you'll need iBooks on your Mac to search there.  If you have an Apple device, in iBooks, go straight to the button that says "iBooks store"), and if you don't want to use iBooks, both Amazon and B&N make really solid apps for your Mac and assorted iThings.

This will give us another thing to pour over while we wait and speculate over the next book set in the All Souls universe, The Serpent's Mirror.  We can't wait!  Actually, we have no choice, sooooo... ;)

Until next time!



P.S. if you are visiting this site from the UK, India, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, (etc. wherever Headline books are sold), and didn't know about this - what?! -, you can download your version from here, and yes, it's free!  :D


P.P.S. Deb’s tip to finding your own companion is to do a search for harkness all souls companion<--click!  We already set it up for you ... :)

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