Guest Post and Giveaway: Cory @ The Savvy Reader

Please give a big welcome to Cory from HarperCollins Canada: The Savvy Reader!

I’m really only writing this post for one reason: to give away books.

Shannon, our dutiful Savvy Reader managing editor, wanted to do some Canada Day themed giveaways with the Canada Day Blog Hop, supported by blog posts about our favourite Canadian authors. When she asked me to write something about Arthur Slade, well, just knowing that someone out there is going to get all 3 books in Art’s The Hunchback Assignments series is reason enough to sit down and write a story.

I love this series. And the 12 year-old boy in me worships it. But, let me start at the beginning and tell you something about the author, not just his books.

Often at a book publisher you hear about books long before they’re published. I’d been hearing about Arthur Slade for years. Previous books (Jolted, Megiddo’s Shadow) seemed to win or be nominated for every award there was. Truthfully, I started to wonder if Saskatchewan was creating awards just to give Art. And yet, still, I never read him.

Then a coworker who knew my taste asked me to read the manuscript for a book called The Hunchback Assignments. This was going to be a “big series for us.” It was an adventure series that “reluctant boy readers” and lovers of YA would devour. So I gave it a try and something inside (that inner 12-year-old) woke up. Sat right up and took notice, really.

I’ve never been a YA fan, not since I was a YA in fact, but Hunchback did that old clichéd thing: it brought me back to an age in which I did believe in fantastical contraptions, evil geniuses and heroes with incredible powers.

I’ve blogged before about how meeting authors can be like meeting your favourite movie or rock star and by the time I got to meet Art, that’s what he’d become for me. Many of my colleagues had met him and raved about what a nice guy he was. (Apparently, he had even written a special short story--a revised ending, of one of his books for a couple of the girls in the office in which they became characters). To be honest, there was a competition going on as to which one of us could make Art our BFF.

I won. Was it the references to 80s metal? Was it that the donut stop at the end of a long day? All I know is that I was won over by Art’s steampunked awesomeness, his sense of humour, his down to earth nature. Finding out that an author whose writing you already love is also a great guy just cements the deal.

If indeed Art is Canadian (seriously, let’s see his passport, he might be from Victorian England and working on behalf of the Permanent Association) he’s one author we should all be proud of on Canada Day. I hope you all enter to win a prize pack of his books and that, even if you don’t win, you sometime get the chance to read Arthur Slade.

Vist Art on Facebook and follow him on Twitter.

• Cory

Follow me on Twitter @corybeatty

P.S. I’ve since read all three Hunchback books and am just as eager for Book 4 as I’ve been for any book on our list. I’m dying to see what will happen with Modo, Mr. Socrates and Octavia.

Thank you so much Cory for stopping by and introducing us to Arthur Slade. Make sure to check out The Savvy Reader for awesome blog posts and updates on authors, new releases and more. 

This contest is open to Canadian residents only.

Books will be mailed out by publisher.

One lucky winner will receive all three books.

Contest ends July 9th - winners announced July 10th.

To enter please fill out this FORM