I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the THE BEAR HOUSE by Meaghan McIsaac
Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About The Book:
Author: Meaghan McIsaac
Pub. Date: October 5, 2021
Publisher: Holiday House
Formats: Hardcover, eBook, Audiobook
Pages: 368
Find it:
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Kindle,
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iBooks,
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Pre-Order The eBook now for 99 cents!
In a gritty medieval world where the ruling houses are based on the constellations, betrayal, intrigue, and a king's murder force the royal sisters of the Bear House on the run!
Moody Aster and her spoiled sister Ursula are the daughters of Jasper Lourdes, Major of Bears and lord of all the realm. Rivals, both girls dream of becoming the Bear queen someday, although neither really deserve to, having no particular talent in... well, anything.
But when their Uncle Bram murders their father in a bid for the crown, the girls are forced onto the run, along with lowly Dev the Bearkeeper and the Lourdes's half-grown grizzly Alcor, symbol of their house. As a bitter struggle for the throne consumes the kingdom in civil war, the sisters must rely on Dev, the bear cub, and each other to survive--and find wells of courage, cunning, and skill they never knew they had.
Reviews
EXCERPT
AT THE START OF
ALL THINGS, THERE WERE ONLY THE STARS.
Many different stars— light upon light upon light— but alone, they were not enough.
To cure their
loneliness, their light combined, and of them were born the High Beasts, each belonging to their own quadrant of heaven.
To the skies
of the South were born the High Fly, the Glimmer Snake, and more. And the stars of the South became known as the Waters.
To the skies
of the East and West were born the Dust Ram, the White Bull, the Star Twins, the Prism Scorpion, and more. These
traveled together, one after the other, a
ring of High Beasts in a never- ending loop.
These stars
became the Ring.
To the skies
of the North were born the White Bear, the Shadow Dragon, the Starhound, and more. But of them all, the stars loved the
firstborn Bear best. And so the northern stars
became the stars of the Great Bear.
When from the
earth, Man emerged from the darkness, looking to the sky for guidance, the stars stretched out their light and sent
these beasts to lead him, bringing them
into the flesh.
And Man
worshipped the stars, and he worshipped the beasts, and the beasts were sacred to him.
Thus, beneath
the heavenly sea of the Waters, the Highen of the Waters was born.
Beneath the
Ring’s milky skies grew the Highen of the Ring.
And beneath
the crisp, dark skies of the Great Bear, the mighty Bear Highen began.
— THE WRITINGS
OF BERN, On the Founding of Highens: The Fore, Star Writ
THE Shadow
Dragons were screaming. Their cries rose out of the dark, echoing over the peak
of Mount Draccus.
Men had come
for their eggs.
Quintin
Wyvern crouched in the shadows of a rocky outcrop, watching the retrieval party
approach the nests. The young prince had promised his father he would stay in
the castle by his ailing mother’s bedside. An outbreak of firelung had taken
hold of the Kingdom of Dracogart, and Mother was just one of many fighting to
survive. But that night, when the dragons began wailing, Lady Wyvern had squeezed
Quintin’s hand.
“Go,” she
told him, her breath ragged from the sickness. “Go and witness their
sacrifice.”
And so
Quintin left her. He had followed hidden paths so as not to be seen, the
mountain’s breath thick and fetid and burning his lungs.
From his
vantage point behind an outcrop of obsidian, Quintin saw the lights of the city
of Dracogart below, saw the men in impressive armor walking up the main road,
their horses sidestepping with nerves.
The mother
dragons hissed at their approach, plumes of smoke billowing from their gaping
mouths in warning. Only three eggs had been laid that year, each one a precious
gift from the stars. They would take a further two years to hatch.
One of them
would never get that chance.
There was a
chirrup at his back, and Quintin startled. He turned and saw a Shadow Dragon, a
juvenile female, crouched on the stones above him. She blinked at him, her
yellow eyes anxious.
Umbra.
Quintin
pressed a finger to his lips and turned back to watch the soldiers.
The mother
dragons paced, encircling their nests. The light of the men’s torches danced
and glinted off their dark, stony scales.
Quintin knew
they would not give up an egg without a fight.
Shadow
Dragons did not abide the laws of men.
And yet the
law demanded an egg all the same. Word had reached Dracogart a week ago from
the Major: the Kingdom of the Shadow Dragon must surrender one egg. And that
egg would pay for the firelung cure that could only be found in the land of
their enemies, the Ring Highen.
“We can’t!”
his mother had said, fuming, when she had still been well enough to stand.
“There has to be another way!”
Chancellor
Furia, King Wyvern’s most trusted advisor, had agreed— even though Furia and
Queen Wyvern rarely agreed on anything. “Sire, it is too sinful even to think
of.”
The eggs of
the Shadow Dragon were sacred. Blessings from the holy stars themselves. How
could Dracogart allow anyone to take what had been
given by the stars?
“The Major
was chosen to be Major because he is favored by the stars,” King Wyvern told
them. “If the Major believes this is the way to save our people, then we must
trust that he is right.”
Save the
people, yes . And more importantly now, thought Quintin, save
Mother. Her condition was
worsening by the hour.
But still, he
felt a nervousness in his gut. What if Father was wrong to allow this?
Umbra
chirruped again, as if she could read his thoughts.
Quintin looked
beyond Dracogart’s rocky valley, over which the mountain’s shadow fell— Father
was out there, somewhere, hunting with his mount Draco, the largest dragon
alive, the dragon- king of the Shadow Dragons. When the Major’s men had left
the castle for the mountain path to retrieve the egg, Father had left with
Draco— the king of dragons would be angry to hear his wives so distressed, he’d
said.
But Quintin
knew the truth. Seeing the Major’s men take an egg from the Shadow Dragons’
nest was too painful for even his father to bear.
There were
shouts from the men in armor, and when Quintin looked, one had approached the
edge of the nest. The man held a spear, its tip fitted with a fat, dripping
hearth weasel— as if a treat would be enough to trade a dragon for her child.
One of the
mother dragons slunk toward him, a threatening hiss venting from her smoking
maw. The fins at the edge of her jaw fluttered. She was eager to crunch bone.
“Courage,
men!” shouted someone. “Hold!” cried
another. And still more were roaring orders as the man in armor inched closer
to the dragon.
Quintin held
his breath. The young soldier stepped across the line on the ground where the
rock had been scorched by dragon breath— the threshold of the nest.
“Too close,”
Quintin whispered.
The mother
dragons reared up, all of them screaming in unison, black wings flapping. The
foremost dragon lunged, her powerful jaws snapping with a thunderous clap just
short of the young man’s belly.
The dragons’
screams built on one another, the noise folding onto itself, lifting with a
ferocious desperation. They were screaming for Draco.
Draco, whose
size and power would protect them all.
Quintin’s
eyes burned with tears. Draco was with his father.
Draco would
not save them.
And then a
roar exploded from somewhere below the mountain.
It was so
loud and resonant, it was as if the earth itself had opened up.
Draco?
No. This roar
was earthbound. Not of the sky.
Quintin heard
Umbra screech and skitter away, scurrying back to her family, back into a nest
farther up the mountain. She was only a little dragon, after all, even if she
was Draco’s daughter.
The mother
dragons’ mood shifted, their hissing and smoking replaced by a quiet, nervous
chirping, tiny sparks spitting from the sides of their mouths. Quintin had
never seen Shadow Dragons look like that— tails wrapped close to their sides,
bellies pressed low to the ground, all huddled close together. They were
frightened. Frightened of what was making its way up the mountain road.
A bear.
A bear unlike
any Quintin had ever seen before.
The hulking
beast stood heads above the horses, her girth so wide it took up the entire
path. Her long, grizzled fur looked like fire, a bright amber color that gleamed
in the torchlight. Her jaws looked powerful enough to crush iron, her paws big
enough to shake the earth. There was no mistaking it— a Hemoth Bear.
She was
Mizar. The mightiest creature in all of the Bear Highen.
And beside
her stood a man, just as hulking and grizzled as she.
The Bear
Major himself: Jasper Lourdes.
They
approached the nest, the dragons clustered together in a quaking mass. Mizar
the Hemoth chuffed and snorted, her massive footfalls causing the very earth to
shake.
Quintin
watched as the Major placed a hand on the Hemoth’s flank and the bear stopped.
The Major continued to approach and, without hesitation, stepped over the
nest’s threshold. The dragons did not make a sound. He picked his way over
rocks and boulders until he was standing above an egg, its
black shell speckled with pinpricks of warm light.
One of the
mothers, the one who had snapped at the soldier, whined with alarm, and the
Hemoth roared again, dislodging rock and stone from the mountainside and
sending it tumbling down.
Quintin threw
his hands over his head to protect himself from the stony shower; dust powdered
his shoulders.
When the
rumble faded to nothing, the dragons were silent again.
Major Jasper
Lourdes bent down to the egg and took it gently in his hands.
Quintin
longed to know how it felt. Warm, he imagined. Like the stones that lined the
hearth fires in the castle.
Finally,
delicately, the High King of the Bear Highen fit the egg into the crook of his
arm, as if cradling a baby, and bowed to the frightened flock of dragons.
And just as
suddenly as they’d arrived, the Major and the Hemoth left, disappearing down
the mountain road with the Major’s soldiers following behind.
Quintin was
alone with the Shadow Dragons, trembling with his awe of the Hemoth Bear, and
with fear and sadness for the egg the men had taken with them— the Shadow
Dragon that would never be.
And the Great
Bear Lord Tawn saw inside the heart of the human Dov, and saw in it that which pleased him: courage to face whatever threat might meet him, love for all the On-High’s children, and the honor to uphold the greatness of the stars . . .
And so it was
that the Great Bear Lord Tawn chose the human Dov to be protector of the realm.
And so it was
that the Highen had its first Major and its first Hemoth Bear.
— THE
WRITINGS OF BERN, The Crowning of the First Major: The Age of Tawn, Star Writ
About Meaghan McIsaac:
Meaghan McIsaac is the author of several books for young readers,
including The Boys of Fire and Ash, which was shortlisted for the Manitoba
Young Readers’ Choice Award; and Movers, which was a Shining Willow
Finalist for the Saskatchewan Young Readers’ Choice Awards. Meaghan lives
in Toronto, Ontario with her two dogs.
Website
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Giveaway Details:
3 winners will win an eBook of THE BEAR HOUSE, US Only.
Tour Schedule:
Week One:
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10/18/2021 |
Kickoff Post |
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10/18/2021 |
Excerpt |
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10/19/2021 |
Excerpt |
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10/19/2021 |
Excerpt |
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10/20/2021 |
Review |
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10/20/2021 |
Excerpt |
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10/21/2021 |
Excerpt |
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10/21/2021 |
Excerpt |
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10/22/2021 |
Review |
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10/22/2021 |
Review |
Week Two:
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10/25/2021 |
Review |
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10/25/2021 |
Review |
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10/26/2021 |
Review |
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10/26/2021 |
Review |
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10/27/2021 |
Review |
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10/27/2021 |
Review |
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10/28/2021 |
Review |
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10/28/2021 |
Review |
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10/29/2021 |
Review |
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10/29/2021 |
Review |
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