{"id":3519,"date":"2013-02-05T14:36:21","date_gmt":"2013-02-05T21:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/?p=3519"},"modified":"2013-02-05T14:36:21","modified_gmt":"2013-02-05T21:36:21","slug":"the-lost-kingdom-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/?p=3519","title":{"rendered":"The Lost Kingdom Cover"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m really excited to share the cover for my next middle-grade novel, The Lost Kingdom<\/em>! This novel is significant to me on a personal level, because an earlier draft of it was the first piece of novel-length fiction I’d ever attempted. It was how I first attracted the attention of my agent, Stephen Fraser, even though he ultimately advised I put it aside and write something new, which I did. But he and I both knew there was still something there, and with time and distance, I was able to see what the story needed and wanted to be. After writing Icefall<\/em>, I decided to come back to it, and\u00a0The Lost Kingdom<\/em> now bears little resemblance to that earlier draft except in the most sweeping and general terms. But it feels good to have hopefully done right by it. So, here is the cover:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

As I’ve said here and elsewhere, I think of this book as a Jules Verne-esque Colonial American fantasy. Here is the synopsis from the cover:<\/p>\n

At last Billy Bartram has received the invitation he\u2019s waited for all his life: His father has asked Billy to join him on one of his expeditions into the vast American wilderness. Traveling in a massive flying aeroship, Billy and a secret society of philosophers and scientists venture west in search of the lost kingdom of the Welsh prince Madoc, to seek aid in the coming war with the French. But the wilds of colonial America hide a host of secret dangers \u2014 from a terrifying bear-wolf that haunts their every move, to a party of French soldiers hot on their trail, to a spy and traitor in their midst.<\/p>\n

Billy will face hazards greater than he has ever imagined as, together with his father, he gets caught up in the fight for the biggest prize of all: America.<\/p>\n

Award-winning author Matthew J. Kirby brings his signature storytelling prowess and superb craft to this extraordinary story of fathers and sons, the beginnings of a nation, and remarkable wonder-filled adventure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What do you guys think?<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m really excited to share the cover for my next middle-grade novel, The Lost Kingdom! This novel is significant to me on a personal level, because an earlier draft of it was the first piece of novel-length fiction I’d ever attempted. It was how I first attracted the attention of my agent, Stephen Fraser, even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-the-lost-kingdom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mtjQ-UL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3519"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3533,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3519\/revisions\/3533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}