Read an Excerpt From Garth Nix’s TERCIEL AND ELINOR

Garth Nix’s new book, Terciel & Elinor, comes out November 2 and Tor has an excerpt from the book to read. This new installment is a prequel to Nix’s very popular Sabriel, the story of a girl who is charged with taking up her father’s mantle as Abhorsen to make sure that the dead stay dead. Terciel and Elinor is the story of Sabriel’s parents. Here is the official description:

In the Old Kingdom, a land of ancient and often terrible magics, eighteen year-old orphan Terciel learns the art of necromancy from his great-aunt Tizanael. But not to raise the Dead, rather to lay them to rest. He is the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, and Tizanael is the Abhorsen, the latest in a long line of people whose task it is to make sure the Dead do not return to Life.

Across the Wall in Ancelstierre, a steam-age country where magic usually does not work, nineteen year-old Elinor lives a secluded life. Her only friends an old governess and an even older groom who was once a famous circus performer. Her mother is a tyrant, who is feared by all despite her sickness and impending death… but perhaps there is even more to fear from that.

Elinor does not know she is deeply connected to the Old Kingdom, nor that magic can sometimes come across the Wall, until a plot by an ancient enemy of the Abhorsens brings Terciel and Tizanael to Ancelstierre. In a single day of fire and death and loss, Elinor finds herself set on a path which will take her into the Old Kingdom, into Terciel’s life, and will embroil her in the struggle of the Abhorsens against the Dead who will not stay dead.

You can head over to Tor to read a full excerpt from the book which gives us our first introduction to Elinor. Though she has lived a secluded life, she sounds like a spunky, interesting character to get to learn more about. In traditional Nix fashion, we end the excerpt with an ominous wind blowing down from the Old Kingdom in the North. Will this signal imminent tragedy?

I’m very excited for this book. Sabriel has been my favorite Nix books set in this world, but we never really get to learn much about her parents from her book. It also happens to be the perfect book to read at this time of year as it focuses on necromancy and monsters. You can pre order your copy of Terciel and Elinor now from Apple books, Amazon, Indiebound, and Target.