Sian Kattë is a successful, middle-aged businesswoman in the tropical island nation of Alizar. Her life seems comfortable and well-arranged…until a violent encounter one evening leaves her with an unwanted magical power.
Arian des Chances is the wife of Alizar’s ruler. She, too, has it all: wealth, power, an advantageous marriage…and a dying son.
When national crisis thrusts these two women together, they discover that personal problems can have much wider implications, and that the lives of both individuals and nations must sometimes be broken to be healed.
Congratulations to Mary Robinette Kowal on Valour and Vanity being named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2014!
Italian rights to Brent Weeks’s THE BLACK PRISM, to Gargoyle Books, by Stefania Fietta at Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale, in association with Cameron McClure and Katie Shea Boutillier.
Kirkus: The story swiftly knots itself into steampunk-ishly surreal complications, with dauntless (and, by this point, love-stricken) Karen in the thick of the action. Supplies all the Bear necessities: strong female characters, existential threats, intriguing developments and a touch of the light fantastic. Steampunk: Something of a new venture for Bear, whose previous output (Steles of the Sky, 2014, etc.) has ranged from heroic fantasy to science fiction, often with an embedded murder mystery. By the late 19th century, airships ply the trade and passenger routes, optimistic miners head in droves for the Alaskan gold fields, and steam-powered robots invented by licensed Mad Scientists do much of the heavy (and sometimes delicate) work. 
RT Book Reviews: Most writers would kill (or, okay, maybe just maim) for a debut novel as electrifying as Alex Gordon’s Gideon.