News: Book Cover - Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress by Sarwat Chadda

Last October I went to the Crystal Palace Children's Books Festival, and once all the workshops were over I ended up in the pub with some blogging friends and a handful of authors, one of which was Sarwat Chadda. I am a huge fan of Sarwat's two books featuring his kick-ass modern day Templar heroine Billi SanGreal, the second of which, Dark Goddess, was my Book of the Year 2010. Whilst we ate in the pub Sarwat was telling me about his labour of love - a book with an young Indian protagonist and with a heavy dose of Indian mythology. He explained how many people had told him he was crazy for wanting to write the story as it would be very difficult to market. Sarwat perservered and then back in March, much to the delight of everyone who knows Sarwat, it was announced that he had secured a publishing deal with the wonderful people at HarperCollins.

If Sarwat's previous books are anything to go by then I think that this book, Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress, and those that follow in the series, could be one of the big successes of 2012, especially with the brilliant marketing and publicity department at Harper promoting it. It may just do for Indian mythology what Percy Jackson did for the legends of Ancient Greece. Sadly it isn't due to be published until March 2012 so some time to wait, but in the meantime feast your eyes on this stunning book cover, and a few brief details about the story:

Varanasi: holy city of the Ganges.

In this land of ancient temples, incense and snake charmers…

Where the monsters and heroes of the past come to life…

One slightly geeky boy from our time…

IS GOING TO KICK SOME DEMON ASS.

Ash Mistry hates India. Which is a problem since his uncle has brought him and his annoying younger sister Lucky there to take up a dream job with the mysterious Lord Savage. But Ash immediately suspects something is very wrong with the eccentric millionaire. Soon, Ash finds himself in a desperate battle to stop Savage's masterplan – the opening of the Iron Gates that have kept Ravana, the demon king, at bay for four millennia…

Sarwat is going to be running a competition on his blog where one lucky winner will receive a very early proof copy of Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress, so head on over to http://sarwatchadda.blogspot.com/ and bookmark the page now!