WIN an ARC of THE CABINET OF EARTHS!!

The contest has ended and the winner notified! Thanks for playing.

The Cabinet of Earths is a fantastic middle-grade novel from debut author Anne Nesbet. It’s coming from HarperCollins Childrens on January 3rd, and it’s beautifully written and compelling, with a terrific girl protagonist, Maya.

You can win an ARC–an advanced reader copy–of the book and read it before everybody else!

All you have to do to enter is pick a number between 1 and 256 and post it in the comments. I’ll respond with a line from that page in the book. When we’re all done (12:00 mid-day on Thursday), I’ll do a random number generator thingy and that person will be the winner. Be sure to include your email when you leave your comment so I can contact you if you win.

Come back and read all the comments, and you’ll get some awesome sneak peeks of this wonderful book!

[Oh, and if two (or more!) people pick the same page, that’s fine–if that page number is the winner, I’ll just do another random generator thingie for that page.]

Guys, I LOVED this book! Don’t believe me? Here’s the back cover:

And, so you can see what I’m talking about, a close-up of a line on the back cover:

Here’s the flap copy:

To protect her baby brother James, 13-year-old Maya has to take on the magical underworld of Paris, in which houses have bronze salamanders for door handles, the most beautiful people are all hooked on the sweet-smelling “anbar,” and a shimmering glass Cabinet of Earths has chosen Maya to be its next keeper.

Good luck!

Posted in Contests on 10/04/2011 08:24 am
 

77 Comments

  1. Ooh, that looks fabulous! I’ll pick 222.

  2. This sounds fantastic! Will the book be published in the UK too do we know? @LizUK on Twitter.

    And randomly, I choose, page 33.

    • Liz, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it picked up over there. Here is a line from page 33:

      “Maya!” said her mother. “A whole church fell on her!”

  3. Sounds like something right up my street!

    My chosen number is 57 please and thank you.

    Susannah

  4. Sounds like a fun book!

    I choose page 9.

    Thanks!

    • Sure thing! From page 9:

      It was dim in the lobby, and Maya (trying so very hard to be helpful and cheerful) was hauling the umpteenth suitcase in from outside when a shadowy figure caught her eye and made her jump.

  5. I still say 47 is better than 42.

    • Then your geek cred suffers!

      From page 47:

      It was not unlike talking to a wall, or a haystack, or an empty chair.

      • Ahem! It is merely DIFFERENT geek cred! See, one of the writers for Star Trek: The Next Generation’s favorite number was 47, and he made it a point to write it into every episode he wrote. The tradition continued on into the other Star Trek series, so 47 and variations (“And that was stored on deck four?” “No, seven.”) show up in the show a lot. It’s a subtle little injoke that’s easy to miss, but once you do notice, it really is far outside of random.

        I WILL DEFEND MY GEEK CRED, MADAM!

      • For real! Well, I may have gotten the story *slightly* wrong. But the essence remains! http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/47

        o/

  6. im going with page 188!

    alainala @ hotmail DOT ca

    this does sound really good!

    • It’s so good! Here’s a line from page 188:

      Maya stood next to her mother, swaying as the train wound its way back under the Seine, and her heart felt raw somehow, as if it had been scalded by spilled tea or exposed slightly too long to an open flame.

  7. I’ll take page 113.

    This is a great idea.

    • I’m glad you think so! Visit again, because soon I’ll be running a contest for my next book, Winterling.

      And here’s a line from page 113:

      Oh, but thinking of her mother now made Maya’s stomach hurt.

  8. Ooh, I’ve been looking forward to Anne’s book for a LONG time! 117, please.

    • Mike, it is worth the wait! Thanks for entering, and here’s a line from page 117:

      The apartment seemed very dark and cold and strange, even after Cousin Louise had made her methodical way from room to room, turning on lights and taking eggs out of the refrigerator for an omelette.

  9. Lucky #13.

    • Thanks for entering, Tracy! Here’s a line from page 13:

      Her mother had a saying for bad days: Life is full of lessons, and the grades aren’t fair.

  10. 18

  11. 77 for me, please! 🙂

    • Thanks for playing, Becky!

      “Looming” was a word that turned up from time to time in books Maya had read, but she saw now that nothing on earth–not crises, shortages, dangers, icebergs–could possibly loom as convincingly as the Eiffel Tower, which grew larger and vaster with every step you took in its direction.

  12. avatar J. Anderson Coats

    I recently read this, but I had to pass the ARC along. I’d LOVE my own. 3 is my number, and my number is 3.

  13. These snippets are enticing! I’ll choose 50.

    • Aren’t they? Here’s a line from page 50:

      The second courtyard was small and crooked, the cobblestones very rough underfoot and the walls rising up all around them slightly green with age and dampness, as if, with another few days of rain, they might just sprout right out in a thick layer of moss.

  14. I’ve been wanting to read this for a long time. Now I just want to read it more. I love the snippets you’re choosing from each page. I choose #144

    • Katy, it is SO worth the wait! Here’s a snippet from page 144:

      They were in the studio now, and light came whispering in through all the windows, and the hundreds of little figures in their elaborate boxes seemed to lean forward to watch.

  15. What a great teaser – I can hardly wait for the January release so an ARC would be perfect! I choose 167.

    • I can’t wait, either–to re-read it!

      Here’s a line from page 167: (this is Maya’s mother talking):

      “It’s hard to have to admit to your own children, when they’re little, how sad the world can be.”

  16. avatar Gwendolyn McIntyre

    It’s on my wish-list! I choose 212.

    • Cool! Here’s a line from page 212:

      All of that twining loveliness wrapped around a huddled little figure, its eyes tightly closed against the light.

  17. I cannot wait to read this book! I’ll take number 108

  18. 171. Yesssss, that’s the winner.

  19. avatar kathryn Anderson

    I was eager to read it before, but you’ve raised the ante on anticipation. I’ll pick 127.

    • Sounds like a winning hand to me! From page 127:

      “Could it be–I mean, it looks to me like it, really it does–some type of magic?”

  20. People keep taking my lucky numbers!! (13, grr!) I’ll go for 63. (And what a great idea, might I add.)

  21. Page 24 please! I’ve been looking forward to this for AGES!!

    • Yay, Rae!

      From page 24, Maya’s chemist dad talking:

      “The Society of Philosophical Chemistry–I think that’s what they call themselves.”

  22. This is awesome. 242, please!

  23. I’m very excited about this book.

    251

  24. Er, how about page 92 (I see someone has already selected 47…, lol)

    • Excellent choice! From page 92:

      And suspended over the candle fire was another, smaller bowl, and in it, melting, was something translucent and gold, like honey, but harder than honey.

  25. I’m so excited to read this book! What about page 100?

  26. 102!!

    Someone told me this book was very very good 🙂

  27. Cool! I request page 32.

  28. Hi I’m in grade seven and I really love your Magic Thief trilogy. You use great figurative language and the book has twists and turns, which is always unpredictable. I extremely look forward to your next book Arc of The Cabinet. I guess 127.

    • Thanks for the Magic Thief love, Perry!!! Just so you know, my next book isn’t the The Cabinet of Earths, but another book called Winterling, which is out in January (the same day as The Cabinet of Earths, as it happens). Anyway, from page 127:

      His eyes were such a comfortable shade of gray; you could almost see the thoughts in them, busily working themselves into actual words.

  29. Great idea. I’m going with 1–cuz that’s my favorite page!

    • 😀 Page one it is!

      They were dark and cold, the first days of 1944 in Paris, and between the winter and the war, everything was bad.

  30. I love this game. I choose 111. 🙂

    • Sure thing, Eugene–thanks for playing. From page 111:

      And here and there in the pattern and branches and leaves, just the slightest hint–glinty silk eyes or flickery tail–of a salamander.

  31. I say, 15 please
    Thank you,
    Angie

    • Thanks for coming over here to enter, Angie!! Here’s a line from page 15:

      “Hey,” she said. “I take it back. That is a salamander.”

  32. avatar Dina Hussain

    I love to read books! Let’s see how this book is. I like the idea of it being based in Paris. Hmmm, what number shall I pick? I’ll pick 55. 🙂

  33. Page 28. I can’t wait to read this book and to give to my daughters … and their friends.

    • Cara–excellent! Here’s a line from page 28:

      “You were only three,” he said, with some relish. “And the church crumbled down around you, and you became famous.”

  34. avatar Christina Davis

    Page 127

    • Christina, sorry it took me so long to approve this comment! I just now found it in the spam folder. Argh! Do come back and visit again–I’ll be giving away another book this week, and others soon.

  35. Because Ann is one of my very favorite people in the world (and so are her daughters)….I’ll pick 3.

  36. I would like page 123 🙂

    • Thanks for entering, Barb, but I’m afraid the contest has ended. Sorry about that! Do come back next week, because I’ll be giving away a terrific ARC from a debut author.

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