Introducing... Karen Healey

If we could play the trumpet we'd be tootin'.

If we had bells, they'd be ringin'.

If there was music, we'd be jivin'.

And if we were Slash from Guns N' Roses* we'd be rockin' a 10 minute wailing guitar solo... because Karen Healey is in the House.

Which, my friends, is a fine thing indeed.

Here are some items of interest about Karen:

1. She grew up in a town which is famous for penguins.

2. She runs the feminist comics organisation girl-wonder.org.
3. As well as writing a novel and appearing regularly at an internet near you, she is also writing a PhD on superhero comics. (Hello, people - a PhD on superhero comics!) If you want to know more about that you'll have to ask Karen, because the whole thing about PhDs is that you have to know more than anyone else does about what it is that you know a lot about. (You can see why it's best if we don't explain these things.)

4. For a while she worked in a bookshop to support her books-comics-and-Diet Coke habit.
5. She is from New Zealand, which is also the home of many other cool things, like the chilly bin.

We have been so excited to have Karen in the House of Onion that we haven't been able to resist mentioning her already. But now it's time for her book to step into the spotlight: because Guardian of the Dead is a ludicrously good read, and we are publishing it in April** 2010. w00t!

So... what if we told you about a novel that has a main character called Ellie, who is smart and strong and courageous and funny?
And what if she is also a black-belt in taekwondo?
And what if she has interesting friends, and mortally scary enemies, and maybe a few other things in her life that are half-way in between?

If you are anything like us, you would say, 'Holy freakin' sweet, the only thing that could make this book any better is if it contained myth, magic, Māori and Pākehā , conflicting and complementary truths, the collision of the ancient and the modern, and different ways to view the world... oh and a love interest.'

To which we would reply... 'It's all there, INCLUDING THE HOT LOVE INTEREST.'

Then you would say, 'SIGN THIS WOMAN UP IMMEDIATELY'

And we would say, 'WE ALREADY DID. GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD IS OUT IN APRIL NEXT YEAR.

And then we would all relax and stop yelling and wait patiently with our hands clasped.

Our cover design isn't quite ready yet - so instead here is a picture of Karen herself:

I'm sorry, you may not take her home. But in April 2010, you may take home Guardian of the Dead.

So... Karen Healey - welcome to the House of Onion! We're delighted to have you, and we hope you'll put your feet up on the coffee table and make yourself at home.

* Don't even get us started on the missing apostrophe before the N
**It's entirely possible that if you read this post in the first 16 hours it was up you might have made note of a different pub date. Apologies for that. Editor-fail.