Waiting On Wednesday: Goldenhand by Garth Nix

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Breaking the Spine where you showcase which books you’re looking forward to being released.

Words cannot describe how excited I am for this week’s featured Waiting on Wednesday novel.

It’s the long-awaited fourth (or rather fifth) installment of Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series. This is my all-time favourite series of books. I’ve re-read all three novels, Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen, and the novella The Creature in the Case (hence me referring to this upcoming novel as the fifth installment), so many times. I hate books to be creased or dog-eared but my copy of Sabriel is just that and I don’t mind, because it shows how much I’ve loved the book since I bought it a decade ago.

UK Release Date: 4th October 2016

As you can see, the cover is only a draft, but I’m glad it’s in the style of the previous novels.

I read Clariel, a kind of prequel that depicted the life of Chlorr of the Mask as a young girl, a year or so ago. I really did enjoy it, but it wasn’t as good as the original novels. Hopefully Goldenhand lives up to its predecessors. I’m so excited to delve back into this world again and see what’s next in store for characters like Lirael, Nicholas and Sam (who, along with Mogget, just pipped everyone else to the post as my favourite character in the novels), as well as maybe Sabriel and Touchstone. The blurb doesn’t mention the latter two, but seeing as Lirael is still the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, Sabriel at least must still be alive.

Synopsis for Goldenhand: 

Lirael is no longer a shy Second Assistant Librarian. She is the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, with dead creatures to battle and Free Magic entities to bind. She’s also a Remembrancer, and wielder of the Dark Mirror. When Lirael finds Nicholas Sayre lying unconscious after being attacked by a hideous Free Magic creature, she uses her powers to save him. But Nicholas is deeply tainted with Free magic and Lirael must seek help for him at her childhood home, the Clayr’s Glacier. But even as she returns to the Clayr, a messenger is trying to reach Lirael with a dire warning from her long-dead mother, Arielle, about the Witch with No Face. But who is the Witch, and what is she planning? Once more a great danger threatens the Old Kingdom, and it must be forestalled not only in the living world, but also in the cold, remorseless river of Death.

Are you excited for the fifth installment in the Old Kingdom series? And if not, why aren’t you?! Let me know in the comments below!