Free excerpt: Frances Hardinge.
Over at The Book Smugglers, there's an excerpt of Frances Hardinge's upcoming The Lie Tree:
Sneaking a quick glance over her shoulder, Faith saw Myrtle waving her arms like a conductor while two deckhands moved the Sunderly trunks and crates into place. Today Myrtle was waxen with tiredness and shrouded to the chin with shawls, but as usual she talked through and over everybody else, warm, bland and unabashed, with a pretty woman’s faith in others’ helpless chivalry.
I SWOON.
Click on through to read the whole thing! And then read her backlist! SHE IS THE BEST.