Cinders and Sparrows
News and Sketches
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commentTidbits of Cinders #6 – Mrs. Cantanker’s Midnight Snack (Deleted scene)
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commentTidbits of Cinders #6 – The Characters of Blackbird Castle
I hope everyone had a good Halloween! I diiiiid, though I did nothing of import, only watched a scary movie (Gretel and Hansel, the new one from 2020 with all the pretty cinematography) and ate ice cream. I’ve been doing nothing of import in general since Cinders and Sparrows came out, though I have done lots of walking and reading and baking of blackberry crumbles. I’m also working on a short story about mythological deities in Victorian London that’s breaking my brain. BUT BE THAT AS IT MAY. Cinders has been out for two weeks, and so here are some of the characters that populate it.
Our heroine and long-lost heir, Zita Brydgeborn – formerly known as Ingabeth, or Mrs. Boliver’s housemaid. She’s generally a cheery and optimistic sort, but this picture finds her practicing the Language of Clouds, which she finds highly annoying.
Bram and Minnifer – the castle’s two remaining servants after everyone else flees.
Absinthia Klarmp, or her gravestone, at least. (I think Absinthia is mentioned one time in the entire book, but her gravestone is too nice to exclude from the character list. It is, like all of these, by my mom.)
This next one I made myself, very hurriedly, but I’m determined to do it again in detail with a proper background, and a proper hand holding the key instead of a lobster pincer, and also proper spacing of the words in the dress. In the meantime, this is Ysabeau Harkleath-Cantanker St. Cloud, Zita’s somewhat mysterious guardian and teacher.
And lastly, coin and lavender in hand, and surrounded by sinister accoutrements, Magdeboor III, our dangerous, dangerous villain. (This is a picture of her hundreds of years ago when she was alive. Things are rather different now. . .)
There are more characters – several ghosts, an enchanted beast, a crow, and a rather ineffectual lawyer named Mr. Grenouille – and hopefully I’ll have sketches of them all eventually. Also, I’ll be able to share some exciting news soooooooon! Possibly next week. Watch this space. 🙂 I hope everyone’s doing well!
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commentTidbits of Cinders #5 – Book Birthdays and Thank You’s
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commentCINDERS & SPARROWS Virtual Event – In Conversation with Christopher Paolini
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commentTidbits of Cinders #4 – Trailings and Book Launches
So, I spent quarantine in emotional turmoil in my pajamas, figuring out iMovie, and I made a book trailer for Cinders and Sparrows! It took me 84 years, and HarperCollins made their own video, which is much snazzier and more professional, but I MADE THIS FROM SCRATCH, and it was kind of a joy, so I hope you like it.
Here it is!
Also!
On October 13th, 6PM Central Time, I’ll be doing a launch event for Cinders and Sparrows, hosted by the lovely people at the Chicago-based Barbara’s Bookstore. It’s online, so you can be anywhere in the world to join, and registering for the event will give you 10% off on purchasing the book. Hopefully I’ll see some familiar faces there, because book events are scary and online book events are even scarier.
I remember doing one with a school in Brazil where I and an alarmingly vast auditorium of middle-schoolers who did not particularly speak English tried to entertain each other for an hour, while the internet cut in and out and teachers ran frantically to and fro across the stage and actual hurricane raged outside. Good times. But now with the pandemic, online events seem to be sleek and fine-tuned, so yayyyy, I’m excited to celebrate the book launch with real people, even if we’re all in different countries.
Good news:
- Cinders and Sparrows is a Kobo Best Book of the Month.
- The Bulletin for the Center of Children’s Books called it “A significant and foreboding mystery,” and said “Bachmann balances horror, magic, and a coming-of-age story with aplomb”, which was very nice of them. (Also ‘aplomb’. A word.) They also said readers might be sad that it’s a standalone, which was equally nice. It is a standalone, and I remember fondly the bittersweet feeling of reading a book and then finding out the author had died like sixty years ago and any further adventures were up to me to daydream about.
- There’s going to be an audiobook, narrated by Justine Eyre in a lovely English accent, with music by me, and you can pre-order it here, or get it on Audible. They’re even making CDs which are apparently still a thing.
More soon! 🙂
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commentTidbits of Cinders #3 – The Castle Arrives
So, a few weeks ago, I teased a project I was working on involving the floorplans of Blackbird Castle, and now it’s herrrrre! Click on the button above! Wander Blackbird Castle’s haunted halls! Poke your head into its secret chambers! Lose your head to a carnivorous piece of furniture! Come back headless and let me tell you about the process, because making this was a JOURNEY.
At first this project was just going to be a printable encyclopedia like the faerie encyclopedia of The Peculiar, but then I thought of doing a floorplan, because as we’ve established, I love floorplans, and then I thought maybe the floorplan should be interactive and clickable, and then I thought maybe I should become an alpine penguin herder because it would be easier than trying to learn programming language, and then I took a deep breath and realized I could enlist the help of others, and so I closed all my tabs on penguin herding, and got to work.
I found one person to make the digital art. I found another person to program everything. I found my mom and asked her to do spot art for 22 rooms, as well as the beautiful frame featuring five very important elements from Cinders and Sparrows, all of which she kindly agreed to do. And then I spent hours and hours compositing, learning how to photoshop, figuring out why cropping an image can make it blurry, writing the music, writing the descriptions of the rooms, ETCETERA. It took a lot longer than I’d thought, but I’m very proud of the results.
Here are a bunch of pictures of the process.

Mom’s initial interpretation of the spot art. Mom likes things cute and nice, and in Mom’s opinion, being a ghost is no excuse not to be cute and nice. We had to talk this one out.

‘Sluicing rays of light,’ though. Very important. Also, is parquet spelled correctly? I’m never entirely sure.

An early draft of the buttons, before I decided they wouldn’t pop enough and would make the whole thing look a bit tew monochromatic.
And there you have it! I hope you enjoy clicking around, and I just want to say thanks again to Mom for all the great artwork (there’s more coming, ahhh! Character sketches, etc.), and also to the programmer, who was a breeze to work with.
Good news:
- Cinders and Sparrows got its first review and it’s a starred review from Kirkus! Kirkus is considered one of the toughest of the trade reviewers, and a starred review is the best sort of review one can get, so I am consequently honored, and also very grateful that the reviewer liked it.
- If you like the cover as much as I do, the Balbusso Sisters, who illustrated it, are selling prints in their store. They have two up, including an exclusive colorized version of the frontispiece of the book, and I’m trying to convince myself to splurge and buy them, or at least the one of the cover because it would look great on my piano.
And that’s that! Only a little over a month until the book is out, ack. I’m excited.
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commentTidbits of Cinders #2 – Paris + Good News
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commentTidbits of Cinders #1 – Exploring Blackbird Castle
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1 commentCOVER REVEAL: Cinders & Sparrows
*blows dust off of blog*
*sweeps out cobwebs*
*pushes antiquated plug-ins from upper window*
Heller.
It’s been ̶a̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶u̶t̶e̶ a year, but I have a new book coming out, weeeeee, and it’s lovely, and I hope people like it. It feels weird to talk about writing and books now when I’ve just kind of forgotten about the internet and ignored everything except Instagram, where all I do is scroll through delectable recipes and post pictures of my bike rides. But anyway. . .
Here it is, the cover for my next book, Cinders and Sparrows! It is beauteous and fair, and I love it. Many thanks to the Balbusso Sisters for the artwork, and Paul Zakris for the book design, and my editor and Greenwillow/HarperCollins for being the best publisher anyone could ever ask for.
Synopsis:
Out October 13th, 2020! (Just in time for Halloween, yas . . . It’s a very Halloween-ish sort of tale, with many ghosts and enchanted trees and heinous curses.)